It was the autumn of 1992 and this was my second year at The Bartlett. Lucia, Oliver, Cathy and I shared a ground-floor flat on Fulham Road, perhaps a hundred yards on from The Black Bull and just shy of the railway bridge before you get to Chelsea FC’s Stamford Bridge stadium on the right if you are heading towards Fulham; “Mentone Mansions”. As Cathy and Oliver had been in London over the summer and had found the place for us, they took precedence and took the two main bedrooms. I arrived third and for some odd reason chose the small bedroom behind the kitchen – a small and cramped space with irregular angles and missing a window pane as it turned out, leaving Lucia the living room as hers for when she arrived a few days later. I suppose I made my choice as, given the options – the living room that would be Lucia’s room contained a large sofa and the TV and would invariably become a common area – at least my space behind the kitchen would be mine alone. Our goings on in the flat with all their anecdotes are stories for another day. What matters here is that 1992 was turning out to be a rather dense year for me on various fronts, the spring and summer having been a bit tricky on both a personal and academic level, but that autumn I was set on pulling myself together and plowing on with my studies. With the benefit of hindsight I now understand that latent underlying factors were already at play within my mind and soul, as together we eroded my good intentions over the course of the academic year. But I can honestly say that those first few months I tried my best to be disciplined and to get engaged with my chosen career.

After a brief initial project, lasting a few weeks in September, the rest of the term was taken up with a meaty project that required us to study the spaces in London devoted to markets. I no longer recall what our exact brief was but I remember the project took me all over London – often in the small hours – as I studied and photo-documented the life cycle of many of these markets. I still have many photos from this period – shot in XP2 (a black and white film manufactured by Ilford that could be processed and developed as a colour film, producing sepia prints) –  and some of them are quite interesting. Some of the darkest photos – in terms of mood – I shot at what I think was Smithfield Market that was devoted to meat. In my minds eye I can still see the subtly disturbing composition of a photo I have long since lost; in a quiet corner behind the stalls, poorly lit by a single lightbulb hanging from a wire, a series of meathooks hanging over a clean stateless-steal work top. I’d like to find that print again. I took a lot of photos of it all; the carcasses, the butchering, the boxes of severed pig’s heads, the hauling about of sides of beef. I had on me a letter of authorization to take photos from the market authorities and mostly people let me take my pictures, sketch and note without interference and not seeming to mind about me as they went about their work. Some of them might ask who I was and what I was up to but seemed happy with my reply that I was a student of architecture involved in a project. One morning I was watching the loading of a van by two or three guys and raised my camera to take a shot when one of the guys shouted out to me to “put my fucking camera away, now!” I lowered it and replied along the lines that it was ok, I was a student, the pictures were just for a university project and I had authorization. He shouted back that he didn’t fucking care; it was rude of me to take a picture without asking. So I apologized and asked them if they would mind my taking a few pictures. The other two sheepishly gesticulated that they didn’t care but their angry mate told me to get lost if I wanted to keep my camera. I backed off and went another way. I don’t remember having provoked him into this state of aggression so there is any number of reasons for his reaction. Perhaps he was moonlighting whilst claiming the dole, I’ve since thought.

I’m generally respectful when taking pictures of others in an obvious manner. If I can “steal” the shot without them noticing, so much the better. Some times it works out well, but often when you ask for permission your subject will pose…or try hard not to. In either case, the dynamics of the moment are compromised. Here in Barcelona, mostly people don’t seem to care; I’m just another foreigner with a smartphone taking pictures. Tonight, however, for the first time in ages, whilst taking random pictures in a bar I had a girl react quite violently and I found myself having to apologize, whilst offering to delete the images in front of her. Although remaining composed, she was visibly upset and it took her a moment to come around and accept my explanations. Inadvertently I had managed to kill the moment. She and the group she was with stopped dancing and drifted over to a corner of the bar to finish their drinks. Feeling deflated, I finished my beer and slithered through the door, out into the night, like a thief caught in the act.