DAVID HOFFMAN: Whitechapel Markets 1972 – 1977

David Hoffman is a documentary photographer, vice chairman of the British Photographic Council and a founding member of Editorial Photographers UK.
 
David lived in Whitechapel in the 70s, having moved down from York to take pictures full time. “The plan”, he recalls, “was just to photograph stuff that I thought was interesting or would be important to record. And then I’d wait for people to find me and hopefully pay me money for the pictures”.
 
David Hoffman took pictures of the markets around Whitechapel between 1972-1979, providing a fascinating look back in time. There were a few street markets in close proximity in those years, one in Brick Lane, another in Slater Street, characterised, Hoffman recalls, by differing levels of desperation. “You would have some people trying to sell a single shoe or a broken pair of glasses,” he says.