Laundrette: Abingdon Road, Oxford

Written by Nasir Hamid on December 26th, 2011

I’ve cycled past this laundrette on my way to and from work for over 14 years but this is the first time I’ve ever set foot inside. It’s something I wanted to photograph for a long time because it seems like the sort of place that will probably get knocked down and turned into a Tesco Metro any minute but either I never got around to it or there always seemed to be a car parked out front. The car hasn’t been there for a while so I finally made a point of braving the evening winter temperatures to make a trip to photograph it.

The washing machines aren’t as retro looking as I had hoped, they’ve probably been replaced in recent years but I do like the wood panels on the walls and ceiling which look very 70’s.

Tech info: Mamiya RZ67 with Kodak Tri-X film, processed in Ilford DDX for 8mins at 20C.

Laundrette interior

Laundrette interior

Washing machine operating instructions

Washing machine operating instructions. I like the hand written painted sign.

Laundrette exterior

Laundrette exterior. The traffic was bumper to bumper so I had to wave my arms to stop the traffic long enough for the 2 second exposure.

 

1 Comments so far ↓

  1. Gerard says:

    I’ve found that laundromats are surprisingly photogenic! I like the second and third images best of this set. I’m impressed you went out in front of cars to stop traffic! Also, I kind of wish that the second photo didn’t have the paper notice on the right – without it, the image looks very retro 🙂 (NB Alana likes the paper notice in there to break up the symmetry)

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