Look at this quirky aerial shot taken a few years back by feted local photographer Douglas Cape. Familiar sights abound – Earth Natural Foods, Flaxon Ptootch, Nationwide – but how on earth did he do it?
“I put the camera up on a very high three metre pole to make a panorama from eight photos,” he says. “Then I simply remapped them.”
We’re sure that’s harder than it sounds. Look closely (click on it for a bigger image) and the detail is fascinating: the faces gawping upwards, dear old Sam Widges (RIP) next door, the sauna’s colourful signage curling bottom right.
The image is part of a new show at Flaxon Ptootch, Kentish Town’s most notorious salon-cum-gallery-cum-venue, and features a whopping 468 photographs taken over the last decade by Douglas and his son Billy Boyd Cape.
“The exhibition came about when I mentioned to owner Michael Ptootch that I had sourced some cheap but full quality photographic printing,” says Douglas, “and suggested we could cover the whole of the space with hundreds of photographs, should the opportunity arise. Michael thought this would be a great idea; little did he realise the show would be all about him and his shop.”
And it’s this vaguely anarchic spirit which the Capes set out to capture on film. “Since 2002 I have been taking occasional panoramas,” continues Douglas, “and then a few years later my son Billy started taking documentary photographs of each party. When he left recently to study film production, I took over. And here we are.”
Indeed. And as well as the hundreds of photos, there will also be some famous K-Town video installations running including ATG Paints Kentish Town, Big Kids and the painting of the Flaxon Mural.
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