Under the Arches

London, like many other major cities, has seen many changes during in this millennia. Many parts of the city has been regenerated in the name of improvement and financial benefits. The regeneration of East London has seen old properties been torn down and replaced with new ones, wasteland been taken into use and an attempt to move criminal elements out of town.  However, the regeneration of East London also means that property have become unaffordable, especially for those with a low income. ‘Blue collar workers’, people in the service industry, creatives and socially involved communities and organisations are often forced to shut or move further out of town.  

A few of the last places that were left to be used for new, small businesses or people involved in a lower paid industry were the arches under the railways. These places, unseen by people traveling in and out of town, were considered as undesirable and through the times have had reasonable rent and been earmarked for the lower paid industries and small individual businesses. As a part of the regeneration many of these races have been refurbished and prices have increased by up to 6 times the previous price. They have become trendy and unaffordable for many small and family run businesses who have been forced to shut down or move further out of town.  

Pål’s images look to document the people who work and live under the arches. He wants to document a time of change by looking at the people who have traditionally had a life under the arches and the new generation of people moving in.  

The work is predominantly a portrait series, looking at the change of generation and character of the tenants of the arches. As well as this the portraits show the environment in which the people are interacting with now and how it is changing, supplemented with other landscape images to show a place in transition.  

One Day in Brooklyn

In February 2017 I went to New York to see Art Buyers, Producers, Picture Editors and Art Directors. I ‘popped my New York cherry’ with four fully packed days with very productive meetings. I also had one day with no meetings, and New York was my playground. Instead of seeing the sites, doing selfies in front of the Empire State Building and climbing the Statue of Liberty, I chose to take a walk through Brooklyn to see if I could find the real New Yorkers. A 14-mile walk and 12 hours later, I finished my ‘Tour de Brooklyn’. Here are some of the faces I met that wintry day.

Thank you to all of you who agreed to be photographed by me, a stranger who approached you on that cold Thursday in February. Thank you to all of you who took the time to see me and my portfolio whilst in New York, thank you to all of you who helped me by introducing me to your friends and colleagues, and a big thank you to Brooklyn for being everything I had hoped you would be. (All images were taken on Thursday 02 February 2017 between 7am and 7pm.)

Behind Closed Doors

The little commuter town 'Antioch', an hour east of San Francisco, made international headlines for all the wrong reasons: This small Californian City had been the home of Phillip Craig Garrido, the abductor of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped, kept "imprisoned" for 18 years in his back garden.

As the discovery of slowly unravelled it was also made public that the city with just over 90,000 inhabitants has been the residential home of 123 sex offenders, many of which were offenders against children.

Megan's Law is a website in the USA that names and shames all sex offenders to make it easier for parents to protect their children against people who have offended before. Using the Megan's Law's website I travelled to Antioch to photograph the houses of convicted sex offenders. The seemingly normal houses could be the neighbour houses of any suburban American City. The houses of Antioch give us a disturbing feeling that these sex offenders could be anyone's neighbours. No tell-tell signs or no obvious feeling of a ghetto, the middle-class suburban buildings are the shelters of men and women who have offended against children and who may or may not offend again. In some of the pictures one can even see the evidence of children nearby or in the houses, making this normal image seem even more chilling: The feeling one has about these houses have through the information given been turned from being idyllic homes of residents to fortresses or prisons meant to hold a secret and keep unwanted people out who may reveal their secret. A toy outside has turned from the innocent to an enticing toy. The blinds and shutters on the windows have turned from being something that keeps the bad out of a house to keep a bad secret inside the house.

To enhance the uncomfortable viewing of these images the captions read exactly how the offence is listed on Megan’s Law’s website.

(These images were photographed in 2009 and the residents of the properties may have moved on since then.)

Damien Hirst at Sotheby's

In 2008 Damien Hirst shattered world records and changed the art market forever with an auction that made him more than £111 million. It was a case of perfect timing as it was only moments before the banking crisis and big investors were looking for new investments.

The following images were a part of an exclusive cover story for Time Magazine in the run-up to the Auction. Behind the scene at Sotheby’s as Damien was preparing for the auction.

Burlesque

In the last decade, Burlesque has seen a huge comeback in London. I spent a while following UK’s most respected Burlesque Dancer Immodesty Blaze on her nights, and the dancers that danced with her.

Jewish London

I live on the doorstep of one of London's biggest Orthodox Jewish communities. This community is often an isolated and self-sufficient community in the midst of a very integrated London community.

Wanting to break down the boundaries and to gain a greater understanding of what it is to live in an orthodox Jewish community in London, I gained access into the family of Rabbi Herschel Gluck. I followed Rabbi Gluck and his family in day to day living and all the religious events that I was allowed to photograph.