The Columbia Road is one of London’s new and trendy alternative shopping locations. The flower market is open only on a Sunday and gives the road the feel of a traditional 'olde world' Victorian Market with its backdrop of yellow and red bricked terraced houses and small intimate pubs, shops and galleries

Over the last few years the road and the area has subtly changed. With the development of Spitalfield’s and the 'urban regeneration' and expansion of the City of London there has been an influx of young professional and the well healed middle class into the area which is now reflected in the customers and visitors to the Sunday market.

Over the last few years the road and the area has subtly changed. With the development of Spitalfield’s and the 'urban regeneration' and expansion of the City of London there has been an influx of young professional and the well healed middle class into the area which is now reflected in the customers and visitors to the Sunday market.

Paul Baldesare

Paul Baldesare is a London photographer whose work has been regularly published and exhibited and is in public and private collections. He has carried out several long term documentary projects since 1983 and received an Arts Council National Lottery Grant in 1997-8 to continue his English Carnival project.

He writes:

Each City has its own unique and individual signature its fabric that is the layout of buildings, streets and open spaces defining its own distinctive character.

The centre of London is not lived in the same way as other large cities; most of those who work there daily commute in and out and back to its suburbs. It is generally a daytime city, its business and shopping hours dictating the flow of people. Over the last few years it has also become increasingly themed with well-defined leisure, shopping, business and tourist areas.

I have been trying to define the changing character of modern London by returning to photograph on the streets and public areas that I have been familiar with for over twenty-five years.

To photograph and capture the ebb and flow of the streets can be as frustrating as it is also mind absorbing. An ordinary situation can explode into a dynamic moment at the blink of an eye, revealing a subtle mosaic of urban behaviour that at its best can escape the familiar frame of photographic cliché bringing together elements of visual geometry that can be difficult to label but fascinating to look at.

Paul Baldesare

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