John Londei

Shutting Up Shop (Late 1970s)

Like many artists, John Londei explores different area’s of photography from black and white to using the studio and photographing famous, old, young people and so on. Londei studied at the Medway College of Art where he found his passion for Photography. He is also an award-winning advertising and editorial photographer.

”Shutting Up Shop” is a series of images where Londei shot images over a seventeen year period which started in the early 1970’s. These images were based around small traditional shops but have now disappeared over the years. There are a wide range of shops featured in this series from tea shops to tobacco and flower shops. A lot of the images were taken around London but also across different regions in the UK. These photographs have been held at The National Portrait Gallery and The Museum of London as part of solo exhibitions.

Looking at the series of work which Londei created, I am inspired to recreate images similar to the one above. Vintage shops spark my interest the most when thinking about a shoot similar to Londei’s work. I feel that photographing old shops would be interesting

because of the unique antiques that are shown in the display windows. However, I also felt that photographing an employe from the shop would be intriguing simply because of how they dress for work as some places may or may not have a dress code.

Overall, Londei’s series, ”Shutting up Shop” has inspired me to recreate his images in my own way. I will be scouting for a number of locations which have vintage shops. Simple and unique is what I would describe these particular images that are related to this series.

Reference: John Londei Photography. 2013. Shops. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.johnlondei.co.uk/index.php?filename=index. [Accessed 01 March 15

Londe, J (2007).Shutting Up Shop: The Decline of the Traditional Small Shop. London: Dewi Lewis Ltd. 20-25

Midterm hand in

This week, I had to hand in my work that I have done so far for this project. For the project, our task is to have two final colour prints, alone with contact sheets and research based on six different artists of my choice. The projects theme this semester is based on Portraiture. Many ideas come to mind when looking at portraiture and how I can interpret it in my own way.

After brainstorming many ideas, I narrowed it down to three main ideas:

1) People holding an object which represents them (eg. a guitar)

2) People and their careers- work environment

3) Dressing up in peoples clothes- comparing to what they looked like in old photos.

During a group tutorials and talking about my proposal, I decided to go with my second choice which was to look and people and their work environments. Once I chose my final idea, I started looking into a number of photographers who have done work similar to my idea. I eventually came across John Londei, a photographer who did a series of images called ‘Shutting Up Shop’. This series is based on owners and employes being photographed outside of their work places. For fourteen years, he focused on this project ( alongside others) and looked at vintage shops in particular. As well as that, he photographed tobacco, tea, music and other various shops.

Using a medium format camera for the first time was quite scary ( due to the fact I had never used one before!). However, once I had done one roll of film I found it easier as I went along. Doing colour prints this time around is much more complicated than the black and white darkroom. On the other hand, I enjoy it more because I get to learn more complicated stuff, and i’ve discovered more techniques that are useful such as the use of filters.

Overall, I felt that my final two images related to John Londei’s work. I preferred one of the images to the other, but I am hoping to improve that in the future.