Bringing Bow & The Olympics Into Focus
Last Saturday 7th May, Graham Barker of Walk East and Natalie Clarke kicked off a course of photo walks to the Olympic site.
The course explores different walking routes from Mile End Park to the Olympics site using photography as a focus. It is aimed at local Bow residents and has been made possible thanks to funding from Action for Bow.
“When dashing about by car, bus or tube, it’s easy to miss interesting landmarks and green spaces on our doorsteps,” explains Walk East director Graham Barker.
“This course offers a closer look at what’s around, and a chance to re-discover the local area through photography. By following different routes each week, there’s always something new to see and photograph, whether it’s local history on the Bow streets, wildlife in Mile End and Victoria Parks, architecture on Fish Island or the latest developments on the Olympic site.”
The 5 week course of photo walks was first trialled in October 2010 and due to its successful completion, including the production of a photo book, the course is running again throughout May with over 10 new participants.
Photo Walk Week 1 – Learning To See, Not Just Look
In the first walk, we started at Mile End and made our way along the Regent’s and Hertford Union canals to the View Tube.
Graham delivered many fascinating stories about the East End and the sights we saw along the way, whilst I talked about the basics in being a better photographer and how to move away from beginner’s mindset.
In the next 3 weeks, I will be introducing the group to camera settings and composition to help them improve their photography. Participants had been asked to leave their cameras at home in week 1 to help them concentrate on spotting the ‘extraordinary in the ordinary’ and to get a sense of what they might want to photograph in the following weeks.
High Street 2012
Also on the same day, we ran another photo walk which took in the interesting places off the main route from the City to Stratford.
During the next five weeks this course will take in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Mile End Park, Grove Hall Park, Queen Mary’s University, Bow streets, Three Mills.
We’ll pass by old and new architecture, cemeteries, green spaces, canals, river… the photographs will be great! Keep an eye on the photos below to see what the group gets up to!
