Goodbye Shepherds Bush

One of my new years resolution was to keep publishing regularly on the blog. It’s a few weeks into January and I am already failing. In my defense, I was moving flats. As usual I underestimated efforts it required despite my best intentions to downsize my belongings. Once I settle down, in a week or two, I am hoping to bring my posting rhythm down.

Several days ago, before we started moving out from Shepherd’s Bush, I figured out that most likely I won’t have many opportunities to explore this location photographically in the near future.  My life happens too fast and I run for too much, sometimes I leave places without having a chance to look back. Unless, of course, I meet some cool people keen on photographic collaboration in that part of London. Shoot me an e-mail 🙂 So I decided to go for one last walk around the area with my tripod and a camera.

Shepherd’s Bush is a weird neighbourhood, full of dissonances and contrasts. It will stay imprinted on my skin, in the story of  my life forever.  At the beginning of October we lost our Kentish Town flat after just over a month of living there. This is how our nomad life in London began. This city is beautiful and dazzling and over 8 million people want to be here as much as we do. There are many dishonest crooks her that don’t hesitate to take advantage of.  This is yet another way in which London resembles a beautiful, exploding with life but wild and dangerous urban jungle.

We had a couple of days to find a new place and in desperation we decided to rent a tiny, shabby, overpriced room above an abandoned pub Duke of Edinburgh. Three months ago with a shaking hand I signed the contract knowing I will regret this decision. After I left the letting agency I burst out into tears. I will not be getting into details about what went wrong and why living in that place has left us so emotionally distressed. After days of searching with an eviction notice hanging over our dishonest landlady we realized that early autumn is a season of high demand in the estate market and we will not find anything good within our budget in such a short time. I knew whatever decision we would make, it would be a wrong one. But we didn’t want to end up on the street, so some decision had to be made. If we had to live somewhere crappy, let it be at least well located.

There is nothing wrong with Shepherd’s Bush itself. It’s a place that served us a shelter in the tough times. A place that motivated me to work harder, partly because I didn’t want to spend much time there. Flats there are probably one of the best deals in West London when it comes to transport links and flat prices. Our horror house was just 3 minutes away from the Central Line, Overground and my train to work. From our window we could see the busy Shepherd’s Bush roundabout, bustling with life shops and people rushing to work into the underground. Westfield ahead of us and Holland Park behind us. On one side of the road busy junctions and 24/7 shops stocked with anything you can imagine. On the other side quiet streets with white picket fences and beautiful doors and windows you could see on the photos. On the border with Kensington some of the houses in the neighbourhood were a marvellous sophisticated. I am sure there are plenty of affordable and gorgeous flats around there. Unfortunately our wasn’t one of them. If it was, who knows, maybe despite my love for North London we would have stayed there for good.

As promised before I decided to show my face on this blog more often and some photos here was my first proper experiment with remote and tripod friends. Once again a portion of doors and windows for you, this time in Shepherd’s Bush, which I am leaving with relief. Let these photos be the only thing that will be the only memory left after my time in Shepherd’s Bush, after the years pass, wounds heal and I am a stronger and wiser person.