Philipp Ebeling grew up in a small village in Germany, and coming to London, “I was both overwhelmed and bewitched,” he writes. The feeling led him to explore the city as thoroughly as possible, eventually making the photographs in London Ends, a new book published by Fishbar. Rather than focus on The City of London and its iconic sights, Ebeling was drawn to the districts at the edges of Greater London. Part of his exploration included a ten day, 150 mile walk around the outskirts of the city, starting and ending in Hackney where he lived, photographing as he went. An impressionistic written account of the walk runs along the bottom edge of the book’s pages. When checking into a hostel, he writes, “we have to give our address, I write Hackney the receptionist gives me a funny look,” surprised to have a visitor from so close by. At the walk’s end, he writes, “Shin splint, I have to look up the word.”
The photographs he made on that trip and others share a low key quietude and charm—picnickers watch planes take off at Heathrow; men fish in Creekmouth in the shadow of the massive Barking Creek tidal barrier; arm in arm, ladies in beige coats kick up their heels on Wood Street in Waltham Forest. “I felt compelled to know every last corner of the place, to understand it as fully as I could,” writes Ebeling, who crisscrossed the city “finding new routes to places, exploring new neighborhoods, getting lost and soaking up every detail.”
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