A photographer whose pictures painted a gripping image of London in lockdown has had his work exhibited at a gallery in the capital.
Jimmy Brimmacombe and other former Bishop’s Stortford High School friend Jordan Pollock launched the Keeping Meters project, which led to a short film and subsequently a book.
And from Saturday 21 May, an exhibition of Jimmy’s work was staged for four days at the JM Gallery in Portobello Road in London.
The couple, both 28, teamed up to produce the film after both were fired during the first corona lock in the spring of 2020, and Jimmy took to the streets to document the once-in-a-lifetime event.
The friends, who first met at Manor Fields Primary in Thorley Park, told Indie in an interview in July 2021, they were just a “couple of comrades trying to make something happen,” and in their state of limbo, they felt they needed something that would give them a purpose and motivation.
Released from his job as a bartender at a pub in Notting Hill, what started as “a little fun” during the first week of lockdown for Jimmy as he set off on his bike with a new camera soon became a project that documents the underbelly of London and the characters left on the city’s bare streets.
And boxing promoter Jordan was so fascinated by his friend’s work that he assembled a team called Furlough Collective, which included other former Stortford High School student Charlie Wood as film photographer and web designer Jack Fenner, to produce a film featuring Jimmy’s work and then a book.
The exhibition was the logical next step, but it took the couple some time to arrange and gave Jimmy trouble with what to include.
“I’ve taken 100s of pictures,” Jimmy said. “It was pretty hard to curate because I wanted to tell the lockdown story, but I wanted a good mix of storytelling and art,” he added.
“I was not trying to impress people, I was just trying to tell a story.”
He reported that the exhibition had gone well, with prints of the sold photos and a couple of the Keeping Meters books, but it had also given him the opportunity to network and make the most of some opportunities to advance his flourishing career as a freelance photographer. .
