The Snapping Bishop

Photographic Piece: Title. BrokenView

Slighty better light later that evening eventually led me to produced this from one of the shots.

A disused warehouse on the Mile End Road.

(Now demolished)
I don’t know what it is about exploring old disused buildings, derelict warehouses and alike that I love so much, the possibility that I may find some wondrous scene of natures power, a beautiful paint peeled oil tank or a rust ridden steam engine perhaps… yeah right, bit of a tall order that last one, but anything remotely close would be fine.

Whatever I thought I might find when wandering into a graffiti ridden warehouse on the Mile End road, I didn’t expect to find a hidden community….

I’d already explored the ground floor, dark, dank and burnt out, nothing worth shooting their, The first floor, a large open space occupying the full width of the building, strewn with rubbish, floor tiles stripped and the cold wind rushing though through glassless windows….not a very photogenic place at all I was beginning to think.
At this point there’s a shouting voice behind me somewhere across the room

‘Oi, who are you, what you doing!’

I turn to see a man standing in defiance, a short pole in his hand.
I can’t remember my reply exactly, but it involved telling him to calm down, ‘I’m just taking pictures etc’ and I tell him to it would also be sensible if he put the pole down….which he does….good choice I say, smiles of relief on both sides, we say goodbye and he leaves me too get on with my stuff.

…about ten minuets later, I’m now on the second floor and I get another voice, this time more friendly, it’s a rather distressed looking woman who’s rushed up the opposite stairwell after speaking to her boy friend, the man I met earlier. She goes on to rapidly inform me of the dangers of the upper floors, speaking between breaths she tells a tale of fights and threats, runaway murderers, how her boyfriend had been attacked and nearly killed and I shouldn’t go up to the top floor, especially the far side.

Its at this point I realise the whole building is occupied.

Most the small rooms off each open floor are occupied by the homeless she goes onto say, theirs about 20 at the moment, the upper floors are all immigrants, and the further down you go the better the standard the rooms and the lengthier the squatting…’some people have been living here on and off for years’ she says… as if its impressive.
So I’m surrounded by people actually living in these desperate conditions, most of them out during the day, I was relieved to here; working on some building site to come back to a dry space in a storage room and nothing but a grubby mattress to sleep on.

I did pop up to the top floor for a quick look, but as you can see, I didn’t find much to photograph that day, nothing pretty anyway.
I met some poor lost souls, got asked in for tea, and eventually after I’d spared a little change …took their photograph, just the one mind.

The couple shall remain nameless as requested. In case your wandering a generator is supplying the power for the kettle and a tiny b&w TV.

Scary thought isn’t it…. certainly made me grateful for the smallest of things that I’ve achieved, but mainly thankful that I’d not slipped from life’s ladder, well not to many times anyway…

I went back to visit and try and catch some better light a few months later, our couple and their small home had vanished, lets hope they’re on a better road.