Serpentine Lake, Hyde Park, London. Images from the 1914 cup, with 1913 winner G Gyton.
(Photo: Londonist.com)
The Peter Pan Cup is a yearly 100m race, a swim across the icy-cold Serpentine Lido in Hyde Park. Swimmers have met in the park every Christmas morning since 1864, and the titular “Peter Pan Cup” was first donated in 1904 by author J.M. Barrie himself.
Participants must acclimatise themselves to the cold across the year, and these weekend swim sessions have caught the attention of a few London-based street photographers who have been documenting those days. I wanted to photograph the event itself, so planned my 2019 Christmas Day around attending this early morning event.
I photographed with two cameras, my Nikon FM2 with 70-210 f/4 Series E lens, and a Nikon FG with a Sigma 24mm f/2.8. I had ILFORD Delta 3200 Professional in my FM2, and HP5 PLUS pushed to 1600 in my FG for use with the wide angle.
I quite liked the Delta 3200 Professional frames, the grain and the early morning sun were a wonderful combination. The HP5 PLUS was a bit too blocky here, I prefer the airiness and lower contrast feeling from the higher speed emulsion.
It’s interesting looking back at these images – I wrote this article a couple of weeks into the New Year (2020), and now after being asked to revisit this article by EM to add a few more thoughts I am forced to also consider the new context these images now exist in. It may be that we don’t see another Christmas gathering such as this for a while, but I’ll definitely try and be there for when it does happen! However I feel about a possible improvement to the way I made these photographs on an aesthetic and storytelling level they do now represent a strong idea about community coming together in the icy cold, and just having a great time together; very appropriate for a Christmas story. Happy holidays!
Interested to know more: Serpentine Swimming Club
Simon King
