Inspired by Geoff Nicholson’s Whitbread short-listed novel Bleeding London, in which a character named Stuart London walks the complete length and breadth London, Londoners and visitors to the capital have been following in Stuart’s footsteps and photographing every street as they go.
The photographs in the Bleeding London exhibition illustrate the exhilarating diversity that constitutes the fabric of the city – from the iconic sights to the lesser-known backstreets of the suburbs. And the 600 participants have been just as diverse – from professionals with top-of-the-range kit to those who have picked up a camera for the first time. And, unsurprisingly, a significant number of the photos have been taken on phones.
The Bleeding London project is the brainchild of London Regional Organiser, Del Barrett ARPS. “The project has been an amazing experience and we are thrilled with the results. The images from the project are not just views of streets, but an eclectic mix of details, urban landscapes, people, wildlife and everything else that London has to offer.”
Author, Geoff Nicholson, has been fully supportive of the project from its inception. “An author is always delighted when one of his novels has an ongoing life. As someone obsessed with London, walking and photography, I’m thrilled to have my novel reimagined in the form of contemporary images.” When asked about the title, Geoff said, “The central metaphor of Bleeding London is that the city is a living organism, it breathes, it ages, it is sometimes healthy sometimes not, it occasionally requires a bit of surgery, it has a gut and a heart and lungs and a nervous system. And it has a life blood – which means that once in a while it will bleed.”
