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Life As a Night Porter.
Photographs by Chris Shaw.
Twin Palms Publishers,
Santa Fe,
2005.
64 pp.,
64 duotone plates.,
12x16".
Publisher's Description
Chris Shaw spent ten years working in London hotels, all-the-while
using his camera to both document the hotels' unexpected human
spectacles and keep himself awake though the long hours of his shift.
Whether capturing prostitutes waiting between “Johns,” weary hotel
staff, the inebriated and profligate guests, or the details of the
hotels' faded grandeur, Shaw’s images transcend the physical boundaries
of a place, and instead capture a state of mind in which few
people would choose to stay more than a night.
“The thing I like about the pictures is the large element of what I
call the “chance meeting,” the times I was so tired I lost the artifice
and techniques of photography. I just took photographs to keep me
awake. It became artless. The people I photographed, these
episodes of the social fantastic would heighten and illuminate my
whole night. . . . The sum of the book is really a hotel of my imagination
constructed from several hotels I have worked in and some
I’ve stayed in as a paying guest. In reality these hotels bear little or
no resemblance to my actual pictures. It just depends on how you
look at things. In my experience heaven and hell are places right
here on earth, and you can stay in either one.” -Chris Shaw
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