Also out now
The Englishman & the Eel
By Stuart Freedman, Dewi Lewis Publishing, £29, 224 pages, hardcover, ISBN 978-1-911306-20-7
It's been a bumper week for excellent documentary photography books at AP, and this, this is a beautifully shot ‘love letter' to a unique kind of eatery though this time Freedman focuses on London's endangered pie, mash and eel joints, rather than Indian coffee shops. He had a battle raising the necessary funds to get published via crowdfunding, but the effort was well worth it. These are wonderful images, capturing the unique establishments and their clientele, as well as the careful preparation behind this archetypal cockney cuisine. As Freedman points out, ‘These simple spaces hold the memories of a rich largely undocumented cultural heritage… in a city whose only constant is change.' His compositional skills, timing, and use of colour are second to none.
