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InspirationPhotography

Lost in the City: Striking photographs of office workers alienated and displaced in the City

Nicholas Sack’s black and white photographs of office workers in and around the City of London show isolated individuals set against the imposing grid-like architecture of modern London.

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All images courtesy of the artist and issued via submission by Hoxton Mini Press

All images courtesy of the artist and issued via submission by Hoxton Mini Press

With an expert anthropological eye, Sack examines this strange urban tribe, who with their destinations in mind, pound the streets in haste, swarming amongst each other but somehow still estranged.

Lost In The City, with humour and pathos, reminds us of the alienation that can be felt in the heart of a busy city as well as obliquely commenting on the moral uncertainty of the financial district. The book is accompanied by an essay from renowned novelist and Hackney resident, Iain Sinclair, considered one of the foremost chroniclers of London and an exponent of psychogeography.

Nicholas Sack has been a commercial photographer for 30 years but now concentrates on personal projects shot on black and white film on long walks across London and printed in his dark-room; he is currently documenting the buildings of 1930s suburbia. This is Sack’s second book; Uncommon Ground was published to critical acclaim in 2004.

Available to buy from the wonderful Hoxton Mini Press – an independent publisher making collectable books about East London. They work with a range of local photographers, artists and writers to create quirky but elegant books that celebrate the character of London’s most exciting neighbourhood. Give them your love and support.

Office workers in suits walking past grand classical columns on a London street, appearing isolated despite their proximity to one another
Office workers in dark suits walk past white construction hoardings on a London street, with Georgian and modern buildings rising behind them
Two figures stand outside a modernist building with large grid-patterned windows and "100" displayed on the facade, casting long shadows across the pavement
A street bollard with stars and stripes in the foreground, with two office workers walking separately on an empty pavement beneath towering modernist buildings in Nicholas Sack's Lost in the City series
Two men in business attire stand on a rooftop beside a white and black structure, with imposing modernist office towers rising behind them under a grey sky
Black and white photograph showing a person viewed from behind on a wet London street, with a curved Victorian building on the left and modern high-rise towers visible behind a Hayne Street sign
A solitary figure in a business suit walks away down a narrow London street lined with tall period buildings, with the book title and Nicholas Sack's name overlaid in white text
Book cover for Lost in the City by Nicholas Sack showing a solitary figure walking down a narrow urban street lined with tall buildings
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