Le flâneur appears to meander through the streets without plan or purpose. But this randomness is the flâneurs rationale – to experience the life of the city by surrendering to its ebb and flow – the chance encounters and unexpected discoveries, which can only be revealed through the act of walking.
This is a photographer’s perspective on the urban landscape, an observation of the everyday environment. It’s a personal cityscape, created through a rambling path through the city.
Le Flâneur is published and maintained by Hamish Stewart, an urban photographer and psychogeographer. He uses the camera as a visual guidebook to catalogue the series of impressions that arise from the experience of walking the city and discovering it’s variegated pathways.
The use of the term ‘le flâneur’ acknowledges the influence of Baudelaire and later writers on how the act of walking is essential to understanding the rhythm of the city. You can read here how le flâneur has come to be associated with a particular approach to experiencing and responding to the urban environment.
Based in London he is currently working on several projects in London and Paris.
Several of the projects featured here are available as books via the publishing imprint, Urban Impressions.
Selected Exhibitions
2009 Paint it White LIP Shoreditch Group Exhibition, Red Lion, Hoxton, London
2009 ‘Hand-made photographs in the digital age’ Clifford-Thames Gallery London
2006 ‘Past is Present’ – The Laboratorium, Rochester New York
2004 London Independent Photography 16th Annual Exhibition, Cotton Centre London
1998 ‘Terre Aborigène’ – Espace Photographie – Paris
1996 ‘Cherished Objects’ – AD163 Gallery – Sydney Australia
1985 ‘I Came Across a Broad Highway’ – Developed Image Gallery Adelaide South Australia
1983 ‘Baragoola North Head’ – Images Gallery Sydney Australia
Selected Publications
London Independent Photography Magazine, Winter 2008, Memories
Alternative Photography: Art & Artists, Edition 1 Malin Fabbri, AlternativePhotography.com: Sweden, 2006