These photographs of Smithfield Market were taken in the 90’s it was an enticing and extraordinary world to enter, a world that exists in the hours when most people are sleeping. As it was then it had a strange subterranean feel where the darkness and glowing lights lit rows of animals hanging off their hooks, reminding me of a Rembrandt or Soutine painting creating a mysterious place. The camaraderie of the community of traders who work in the market with their conversations in the cafes whilst eating bacon sandwiches, their aprons covered in blood “debating whether there was a god when there was so much war going on in the world.”
This world I explored has now completely transformed into something much more clinical and has lost the soul and humanity of the place it once was.