Photographer finds spots around London where album covers were taken

A new photography project seeks to reunite old album covers with the locations in London where they were originally photographed.

Photographer and reggae aficionado Alex Bartsch embarked on a two-year photography project to find record covers that had been photographed in London, and then re-capture their image in situ.

His project led him to launch a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a photography book which exhibits the 42 photographs of covers between 1967 and 1987.

Bartsch’s first photograph, over two years ago had been Brixton Cat LP by Joe’s All Stars, 1969, and he's been taking photos for the project since.

Some [of the locations] were easy to find while others took months of detective work. I cycled all over the city, from Penge in southeast London to Harlesden in the northwest. There were wild goose chases, and some unexpected finds. It's been a great adventure, and has painted an interesting map of London's reggae music heritage.

Bartsch’s search took him into all the nooks and crannies of London; he once had to hitch a boat across Regent’s Canal; during another location-finding mission, he climbed onto a roof top near Old Street.

To achieve some of these shots…[I asked] to enter someone's front room in Hampstead, [and] access a back yard in Wembley and venture on to the Westway in west London.

The photographs are also a tribute to history with some of the albums featured being over forty years old.

The image on a record cover usually remains within defined borders, instantly recognisable as a record cover, but not so much as a location. Approaching the scene from a wider angle and revealing the cover’s surroundings brought me, and will hopefully bring others, closer to the time and place of the original photo shoot.

He hopes to have the 112-page, hardcover book available in June 2017.

If you want to contribute to the project, you can do so here.

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