Illustration Friday: Freeze

This is my original pen sketch.

Above is my drawing scanned and manipulated in Photoshop. 

When thinking about what to draw for Illustration Friday's theme of 'freeze' I initially thought of drawing a frozen landscape, but I've been looking at a lot of photography books. I have a book from Bedford library on Humphrey Spender's humanist landscapes and his photographs are like a freeze frame from history. My illustration is based on a photograph he took in 1939 of a street in Tyneside (North West England). The weather must be pretty cold, the people are wrapped up in furs and their faces reflect the hardships of the economic depression of their time.

 Spender's work appeals to me because it is a historical document.

Now that the majority of people have a phone some do feel the need to broadcast themselves doing the most mundane things. I like the ones that include a lot of environmental context. A simple picture of a busy street will look so interesting in years to come! Our architectural landscape is shaped by the people who use it and in twenty or fifty years time it will be a shame if the only photos that exist of our era are an excess of out-of-focus instagram self portraits!