Andy Hall: The Square Mile
“The Square Mile is the title of my zine featuring images of the City of London’s Square taken between 2015 and 2020. It is also the nickname given to the area in the heart of the City of London’s financial district in central London and is also the oldest part of the capital. Living just outside and starting my career there working for trade magazines based in the City of London, I have always had an affinity with it. I have been following the boom and bust cycles of this dynamic area over the past 35 years.
As my career progressed and I started working all over the world, I lost some contact with it; but my interest in this world-famous financial district was rekindled after the banking crisis of 2008/9, and I soon began to hammer its streets again, seeing it bounce back into a spectacular construction boom that seems to continue, despite all other parts of the society suffer economically. Now, the mixed landscape of narrow streets and alleys alongside ancient buildings, juxtaposed at large intersections lined with polished glass monuments to 21st century capitalism, fascinate me. Since I bought my Leica Q in 2015, I have taken the 15-minute drive up the Square Mile to capture the moods. It’s definitely a long-term project, and as it slowly recovers from the pandemic, I’m interested in what will happen after Brexit.” (Andy Hall via leica-camera.blog)
About the Author
Andy Hall is based in London and has been a freelance photographer since 1989. Specializing in photo essays from home and abroad, his work has taken him on a wide range of commissioned news, portrait, landscape, and social documentary features for numerous publications around the world.
Publications his work has appeared in, include:
The Observer and the Guardian newspapers and magazines (contract photographer), the times magazine and the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph, the Independent and Independent on Sunday, New York Times Magazine, Red Bulletin Magazine, Newsweek, GQ Magazine, and Der Speigel Magazine.
Andy’s commercial clients include Transport for London, and he has also worked as a stills photographer for Film Four and Channel Four. Throughout his career, Andy has worked for aid agencies and NGO’s including Oxfam, Save the Children, and ActionAid. Andy also works on a regular basis with UNHCR.
Andy has contributed to numerous exhibitions on subjects such as Angola, South Africa – the last days of apartheid, as well as Oxfam-sponsored exhibitions on the Indian Ocean tsunami, poverty, and the arms trade, and ‘After the thaw’- an exhibition on the former Soviet Republics 20 years on. His portraits of film directors and celebrities have been shown in numerous Getty-sponsored exhibitions around the world.
Andy has collaborated in book projects ranging from “Montreal – eye on the metropolis”(2000), to the British press photography anthology – “Eyewitness; five thousand days”(2004), “Muhammad Ali – the glory years”(2002), as well as the book project “UK at home”(2008). His commissioned work on the ongoing hunger crisis in sub-Saharan Africa was screened at Visa pour L’image, Perpignan in 2012.
Andy is an established street photographer with a growing reputation, having had his work published in specialist magazines such as PDN (Photo District News) and Eyeshot magazine. He is also one of the winners of the PDN sponsored “Best of Street Photography 2016”, and has given talks on his work in the Street London Festival in 2017, and on Radio London in 2018, as well as running street photography workshops and judging street photography competitions on the “Photocrowd” photography website.
Andy was recently awarded series finalist in the Brussels Street Photography Festival 2019.
