Matthew Mills

Hackney – A Tale of Two Cities

The Nelson project in Hackney shows the social landscape of underprivileged families and new urban hipsters colliding in a progressively gentrified area. Nelson’s images have a direct binary contrast built into each image. Nature and unnatural; colour and grayscale; rich and poor. The selection of images used in the book shows a clear view of this binary scale, with the perfect progression in the book showing the progressive gentrification of the different areas of Hackney.

The different layers show the depth of the deprivation inside Hackney. Portraits shot with a plain background draw you to the information that is inside the subject. paying attention to the clothes and style to further examine the divide between underprivileged families and new urban hipsters.