I was walking through Didsbury (a suburb of Manchester) and popped in to their library out of curiosity.
From the outside it looks like a tiny Neo-classical cathedral, but inside everything is 60s/70s utilitarian, with laminated A4 paper signs, tough wearing carpets and standard issue wooden chairs. This is how I remember libraries, full of plastic covered hardbacks and students and older men with shopping bags. This is the taste of nostalgia.
I want the pictures to look how reading a B.S Johnson novel feels: quiet rage, inadequate jumpers, thermos flasks and dissent. The overriding colour scheme is brown and no one speaks louder than a murmur. A time when public buildings were (begrudgingly) for everyone. Tramps escape the cold, drunks pretend to read the paper, the poor soak up free information and free heat. No more, libraries have changed in most places, especially London. Our new idea of inclusiveness is the internet and Idea Stores.
I can't afford to bring the photographer to Manchester, so I'll have to find an equivalent somewhere in London. Where should I begin?