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Dominic's self portrait in the wing mirror of his cab |
London’s fare city through a cabbie’s lens
Taxi driver Dominic Shannon has spent years documenting a unique view of the capital, and his work is now being hailed as a success, writes Simon Wroe
OTHER taxi drivers regard Dominic Shannon with suspicion. Whether they are waiting alongside him at the cab ranks of Heathrow or Harrods, or passing him at the top of Oxford Street, the chances are Mr Shannon will be leaning out the window of his vehicle and taking photos of the scenery.
His fellow cabbies look askance at this behaviour. Some of them mutter “butterboy” under their breath, a phrase used in the trade for clueless novices, its derivation being “he is but a boy”.
Shannon, however, is no “butterboy”. The 39-year-old former boxer, who has lived in Somers Town all his life, has been a licensed Hackney carriage driver for nine years; and he has been taking photos since his first month on the job.
He bought his first camera, a disposable, after a car ran into his cab. What began as a safeguard for insurance claims has developed over the years into a vast, encyclopedic documentation of London over the past decade, all from the perspective of a black cab driver, or “cabarazzi”, as he likes to call himself.
In an effort to catalogue his thousands of images, taken primarily to show his wife and three children what he sees in his working day, Shannon has ordered them into subjects: accidents, animals, customers, diversions, people on crossings, people and statues, queuing, and rear view mirror shots are just a few. Street life and nightlife studies are legion; there’s even a few hundred on Evening Standard headlines.
Tourists that hail this particular taxi, expecting the habitually dour London cabbie, are often surprised to hear their driver remark on the “lovely colourings” of Big Ben or the beauty of a sunset. He is usually taking more pictures than they are. “People don’t understand why I would want to take a picture of something I see every day,” he explains matter-of-factly, “but I’ve always got one eye open for a good picture. If I see something that looks interesting to me, I snap it.”
While Shannon might lack any shred of artistic pretension, his humble efforts have earned him so many admirers that he is no longer able to ignore their entreaties.
On the advice of numerous passengers (and two undercover police officers who became fans after they stopped him for taking pictures of them), his first show, London Through the Eyes of a Cabbie, will open next week at Kodak Express in Camden High Street.
All of a sudden things are moving fast. A few months ago he didn’t know who Thames and Hudson were; now he is meeting with them to discuss a book of his photos. A fare from Random House, another publishing imprint, who saw some of his photos, told him he had an alternative career if he ever wanted it.
“Rubbing shoulders with the art world feels a little strange at first,” he admits. “I normally pick these people up in the back of my cab. Now I’m not just a driver. They’re interested in what I’m doing.”
Shannon moved into cab driving at 27, unable to juggle the long hours of carpentry, his first career, with boxing training and a young family. He passed The Knowledge at 30.
He still trains every morning before work, a discipline he has upheld since his days as a schoolboy boxer for England.
After injury halted his progress at 19 he turned trainer at the St Pancras ABC club, bringing a young Martin Power, the future British bantamweight, up through the ranks. Now the taxi ranks at St Pancras are his first port of call around midday. Most days he finishes at 8pm, though he works late on Friday and Saturday as he likes to photograph the night scene.
Although he has moved onto digital, he still uses a small point-and-shoot camera, held above or into the wing mirror of his cab. This produces mixed results, but Shannon insists that is part of the point: “A lot of people have told me I should get a better camera but that would lose the concept. I’m not a photographer setting up pretty shots with a tripod. I’m a driver. I love being a driver. I’m very proud of what I do. The difference between me and my colleagues is that I snap what I see.”
So would he ever give up driving to pursue photography?
“I can’t see that happening,” he laughs. “All I can see is starting tomorrow at St Pancras.”
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