Special places archive

Walking the Circle Line

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Instead of the standard graphic abstraction of the London Un­der­ground, here is the view from above the ground. Rob Gar­diner takes us on an observant walker’s tour with his ru­di­men­ta­ry camera.

I walked the circuit of London Underground’s Circle Line. I did it on foot, taking slow pinhole photographs. The official map is a lie: the Circle Line looks nothing like one in reality. It twists and turns, dives and rises, meanders around Lon­don in anything but a neat oval. Commuters in their tin can trains oblivious to the world 50ft above their sub­ter­ra­nean heads. I made the trek armed with a simple 4×5 pinhole camera, a simple wooden box with no lens, timer, or any­thing resembling a normal camera. This is what I saw. [from the photographer’s introduction].