High Street

I photographed High Streets in several different towns in England and Wales.
I wanted to portray the usurping of the High Street for the gain of
commercial enterprise and the resulting uniformity and formulaic design
brought about by the political and commercial needs for security and safety,
by design and surveillance.
How do people interact with the space and each other? Do people look as
though they are ambling and treating the High Street as a recreational/safe
area, drawn by a need for community or are they purposeful and quickly
conducting shopping and moving away?
I want to show the erosion of non-corporate space, the imposition of
restrictions and corporate censorship and of the creation of 'destinations',
places to go, by global branding corporations. The cloning and modularisation
of stores, a sort of repetitive Lego construction which familiarises many
High Streets highlighted by Klein.(1). The common and banal design of postmodernism,
shamelessly market oriented, catering for every taste, pandering to the rich
and sidelining or alienating the underprivileged and minorities such as
the homeless mentioned by Jencks.(2).

The mode and method I have used to photograph in a disciplined manner were
influenced by photographers and artists as diverse as Henri Cartier Bresson,
Allan Sekula, Gary Winogrand, Jeff Wall and Robert Frank.

The panoramic format emulates the way we see naturally and imbues an air of
cinema to the frame and stardom to the subjects in the pictures.
As closely as possible each viewpoint is similar; that is, looking along the
street with either WH Smith or Marks and Spencer in the frame. These enterprises
identify the centre of the shopping area.
Each town was photographed around 1pm to 3pm on Saturday afternoon.
I have put myself in the position of a member of the crowd, photographing from
head height to place the viewer in the privileged position of a voyeur of the scene,
frozen for his/her scrutiny.

The photographs were chosen for their composition and mix of individuals.
I looked for a frame full with people, to be able to see many people clearly.
I found that even though I wished to remain impassive, I looked for decisive
moments and sought them again in editing, looking for the frame which best described
the feelings and reactions I had to that particular High Street at that moment.
The photographs, show people's individuality if not that of the town they are in.
There is little to identify the town in each the picture. The six frames seem to
show some of the uniformity and formulaic design suggested by Klein and Jencks.
The photographs document the High Streets in the middle of 2001, and show them
to be bland at this commercial location. The individuals though are as strong to
me as they would be in any documentary photograph, whether a war scenario or an
exotic location.
Further work on this project will include modifications to the shooting parameters
to include malls and individuals who more clearly define the chasm between the
corporate domination of public/private space and those who are 'qualified' to use it.
The experience of photographing people in this way was as exhilliarating as
Winogrand's (3), confronting a wall of humanity surging towards him down the street'
and as relaxed as Baudelaire's (4), flaneur being immersed in the crowd.
The discipline of this project has allowed me to translate the experience of
photographing into a visual statement which can be read. I have been able to control
the uncharted decisions that I make while photographing and editing.

Andrew Mills

1 Klein. N No Logo London; Flamingo.
2 Jencks.C The language of post-modern architecture.
London, in Harvey.D The condition of postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell. 1990
3 Meyerowitz. J and Westerbeck.C Bystander, A history of street photography.
London, Thames and Hudson 1994
4 Before Photography Chapter 1, p.41/2 in Meyerowitz. J and Westerbeck.C Bystander,
A history of street photography. London, Thames and Hudson 1994