PHOTOGRAPHER Harriet Armstrong has her first City Hall public exhibition opening today, after spending 12 months behind the scenes’ getting shots of people who keep London ticking—like Big Ben’s timekeepers
PHOTOGRAPHER Harriet Armstrong has her first City Hall public exhibition opening today, after spending 12 months behind the scenes’ getting shots of people who keep London ticking—like Big Ben’s timekeepers.
The 35-year-old mum from East London has snapped the two men who keep time on Big Ben, another who sorts out the stage props at the National Theatre on the Southbank, engineers who operate the Thames Barrier in East London, electricians who fix the neon lights at Piccadilly Circus and the campanologists (bell ringers) who ring the Bow Bells at Cheapside, just to name a few.
“I got the idea getting the last Underground train home one night,” she told the East London Advertiser.
“There was a mountain of discarded newspapers and I wondered who was paid to clear them up.
“That got me thinking about all the other men and women behind the scenes who keep London on the move.”
Harriet, a full-time photographer when she’s not looking after her three-year-old daughter and running a family home at Walthamstow, has snapped 200 people who work behind the scenes to keep famous institutions of London running.
Now she has been given her own exhibition at City Hall, called Behind the Scenes. It’s free and runs until May 7, the day after the local council elections.
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