Shit London awards to celebrate city’s oddities

Pic: Patrick Dalton

The second annual celebration of London’s most unusual, disfigured and comical corners is set to take place in Hoxton next Thursday.

Organisers of the Shit London Awards 2012 are asking the public to submit pictures for categories including ugliest building, best/worst shop name, most depressing view from work and best picture.

Event creator Patrick Dalton, a 34-year-old photographer said: “The awards were conceived as a way to get people to notice their surroundings a little more and have some fun with photography.

“Certain categories like ‘most depressing view from work’ are very easy for people to enter because they don’t have to leave their desk. It isn’t meant to be taken seriously at all.”

The awards were created off the back of Dalton’s Shit London blog and Shit London book series, both of which evolved from a Facebook group that now has over 10,000 members.

Dalton explained: “Shit London began by accident, I suppose. It started off as a private joke between a friend and I on Facebook.

“I started the group and uploaded a few photos I’d taken of London looking crummy as well as some tongue in cheek observations of rubbish places to visit in the city.

“This was on a Friday. By the Monday a couple of hundred people had joined and started uploading their pictures and it just snowballed from there.”

In the 2011 awards the ELL boroughs were well represented. A picture of Hackney’s Great Eastern Street Car Park took second place in the ugliest building category and Tower Hamlets’ London College of Business and Computer Studies took third.

Croydon’s Abra Kebabra take away won Best/Worst Shop Name with Deptford’s Cod Father’s coming a close second.

Talking about the criteria, Dalton said: “This is a competition for everyone no matter what their photographic skills. It’s more about substance over style.

“This isn’t the BP Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, although there’s always a few shots of dead pigeons if you really need a wildlife fix.”

The awards ceremony will take place at the KK Outlet on Hoxton Square on December 6.

Anyone can submit entries for this year’s awards by sending their entry to shhhlondon@googlemail.com.

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