David Granick's unseen 1960s Photos of London's East End offer a glorious Kodachrome history, rediscovered and scanned by Chris Dorley. Most are colorful and filled with life, poverty and halting renewal, but check out this moody still of Stepney Green in 1961. It seems almost science fictional, a view of London that informed literature (consider Ballard) more than cinema (the same environment has a very different quality in the 1962 film Sparrows Can't Sing). I can imagine setting SF in this precise setting and filmic character. All of this, including the then-new towers, are long-demolished. There's more at The Guardian.
"I was completely blown away by these pictures," says Dorley-Brown, of the first time he saw Granick's slides. "I had always suspected that there was a great color collection of East London photographs taken during this era."
Dorley-Brown had long been fascinated with the post-war East End, and particularly its depiction in color film. "Granick was an amateur," he says. "He shot these pictures to illustrate talks he gave to local history groups, and I think that is what makes them so alluring. There is no 'professional' agenda here. They are impressionistic, personal. He knew the territory and how to photograph it from an insider's perspective."
