172 entries, 507 photographs and one scaffolder who insists he is not a model. Surya Anthony looks back at another year of Clerkenwell Captured.
This jolly scaffolder time-travelled here from the twelfth century. Cloth Fair.
Somewhere among the 507 photographs submitted to this year’s Clerkenwell Community Photography Competition was a message from one entrant describing Clerkenwell as one of the most photogenic neighbourhoods in London.
It is difficult to argue with him.
There are certain photographs you can almost guarantee will arrive every year. The Barbican, naturally. Smithfield in varying degrees of architectural splendour. Clerkenwell Green. Familiar streets, facades and corners photographed from angles that somehow make you wonder why you have never noticed them before.
But after three years of spending an unreasonable amount of time looking at photographs of Clerkenwell, I’m beginning to think “photogenic” has rather less to do with how beautiful a place is than I once thought.
This year, 172 people entered 507 photographs. Between them, they captured something much bigger than a collection of pretty pictures.
There were the big moments. Arsenal’s celebrations spilled through Islington, faithfully documented for posterity by, rather scandalously, a Manchester United supporter. There was World Book Day. Elsewhere, the photographs caught the rituals, gatherings and bits of public life that briefly transform familiar streets into something else entirely.
Fans at the Arsenal Parade.
Then there was Clerkenwell on an ordinary Tuesday.
People at work. A man eating lunch on Leather Lane. Children playing. Two lovebirds beneath the Barbican Conservatory’s luscious greenery. Our streets doing what our streets do when nobody thinks anything particularly historic is happening.
And, obviously, the animals.
Last year, Clerkenwell’s cats staged what appeared to be a hostile takeover of a competition previously dominated by prize-winning pigeons. This year, the pigeons fought back, with both winning photographs in the Under-12 category featuring them at City Road Basin. Never underestimate the determination of the London pigeon.
I just love the matching colours. Living in the area for around four months, looking at the colours on the street is one of the things that entertains me on my commute journey everyday. RIGHT: Winner 12-18: The Barbican Felix Speigl-James Bench Contemplation at the Barbican.
The overall winning photograph, however, belonged to another Clerkenwell species entirely: the scaffolder.
When Richard Hill approached the magnificently toothy gentleman pictured above, he apparently protested: “I’m a scaffolder, not a model.”
The judges, evidently, disagreed.
He has now found himself the face of the 2026 competition, which feels like rather wonderful proof of the point: you do not necessarily need to go looking for the grandest building, the perfect sunset or the postcard view. Sometimes Clerkenwell is at its most photogenic when somebody looks into your camera and grins.
That is also what makes the judges’ job immensely terrifying.
From 507 photographs, they had to distil hundreds of different versions of the same neighbourhood into the selection now hanging on the exhibition walls. I do not envy them one iota. My enormous thanks go to our judges for taking on that task, and to our sponsors (listed below) for once again making the competition and exhibition possible.
The prizes have now been handed out. The applause has died down. Another awards night is over.
But for one more week, the photographs remain.
And personally, that is the loveliest part of the whole competition. For most of the year, these moments exist separately: on phones, cameras and memory cards; in somebody’s walk to work or afternoon in the park. For a few weeks, they are brought together and become something approaching a collective portrait of Clerkenwell 2026.
Then the exhibition comes down, and The Bindery walls become walls again.
So, before they do, go and see it.
Because somewhere among those photographs might be a corner you walk past every day, seen through somebody else’s eyes.
And if you happen to recognise our accidental supermodel, please tell him we think he missed his calling.
The exhibition continues at The Bindery, 51-53 Hatton Garden, EC1N 8HN until Thu 24th Sept 2026. Open Monday to Friday from 8am – 6pm.
You can see all the winning, and highly commended photos from this year’s competition here.
