Amble In the Forest Vol 1

On the odd occasion my better half likes to surprise me with a gift — and this zine by East London photographer Paula Smith was one such. You can take the boy out of London, but not London out of the boy, and perhaps that's why I appreciate it so much.

Amble (in the Forest) is one of two zines Paula's made about her everyday life — separate from, but personal to, her work as a professional photographer. This one covers her stretch of Epping Forest, on her frequent walks:

"This isn't necessarily the sexy part of Epping Forest with its Iron Age fortifications or ancient pollarded trees. This is the rough and ready part where dog walkers and joggers brush shoulders with drug dealers and shady characters coming out of the bushes."

Epping Forest itself has a notable history — nearly 6,000 acres, once a Royal forest, saved from Victorian enclosure & destruction by public outcry and bought by the City of London Corporation, arguably Europe's first successful environmental campaign. But that's not really what this zine is about.

I grew up on the opposite side of London, without anything as grand as Epping Forest on my doorstep — but the remains of once-great woods, semi-rural streams and canals, muddy paths turning to tarmac and back, graffiti on trees and railway bridges, weren't so different. We climbed trees, caught Sticklebacks, dammed streams as putative canal builders and arrived home covered in mud. I recognise all of it in Paula's pictures.

These images aren't the glossy, colour-graded 'bling' with fine separation of greens that often dominates woodland photography now, made for likes on Instagram and sponsors on Youtube. They're personal — how Paula experiences her local woods — and through them you get a sense not just of place but also of the person behind the camera.

All the photographs were shot on film between 2018 and 2026, across a range of formats — 4x5 sheet film, medium-format Bronica, 'toy' cameras like the Holga. Paula clearly enjoys the physical act of using a camera, and finds that different ones don't just change the results but the experience of making the image.

Most shots are black and white, a few in colour. There are no grand vistas — just individual trees, autumn bracken, makeshift children's swings, a boating lake closed in winter, graffiti and signs. It's an environment humans use as a release from London's extreme urbanism.

These are quiet images that don't leap off the page so much as settle into you, evoking memory and thought rather than giving instant gratification. The zine format suits that: physical, held in the hands, with images chosen and sequenced with evident care — building not just a sense of place but a human response to it.

There's a liminal quality here — not quite city, suburbia, or rural, but somewhere where the boundaries are flexible and that shape-shifts with season, weather, and whoever's passing through. This is London. Not the London of mass tourism - but the London of those who live and work there. It's Paula's London. It's also my London.

AMBLE – In the Forest Vol. 1

46 images / 56 pages / A5 staple-bound zine, limited edition of 100
https://paulasmith.co.uk/shop/books/

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