In the Olympics\' Shadow, a Tale of Two Cities

By JAMES ESTRIN

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Both crime-ridden and trendy, Hackney is one of the host boroughs for the Olympic Games in London.

ShowcaseZed Nelson

Zed Nelson's work appeared on Lens in 2010, showing how bodily transformations reflect globalization.

It is also the home of the photographer Zed Nelson, who spent much of his childhood in this racially and culturally diverse area that occupies seven square miles of London.

“It has violence, beauty, wildlife, concrete wastelands, poverty and affl uence jumbled together, vying for space,” he recently wrote. “It is tattered and fractured, but very alive.”

Mr. Nelson has called Hackney home since he was 3 years old. He spent a year traveling to India in an old diesel ambulance with his “hippie parents,,” and two more with them in Hong Kong, but as a teenager found himself back in Hackney attending an extremely rough inner city school, considered to be one of the worst in London. His days there centered not so much on education but on survival.

Before long, he had pierced his ears, gotten a mohawk haircut, experimented with drugs, joined a motorscooter gang and dropped out of school. One of his friends was murdered and another went to jail.

But Mr. Nelson changed his life by going to college and studying photography. Immediately afterward, he embarked on a career that has led him to travel the world. In many ways, he left his childhood home behind without actually moving.

“I sort of t urned my back on Hackney but I never moved out of it,” Mr. Nelson, 45, said. “I left it psychologically, and geographically, when I started traveling, but I would always come back.”

He feels that his upbringing in Hackney may have contributed to his becoming a photographer. It hardened him, but also exposed him to a vibrant multicultural world of people from throughout the Commonwealth, particularly from the West Indies. “It actually brought the rest of the world to my doorstep,” he said.

In the last five years, Mr. Nelson has witnessed dramatic changes in the borough. Urban hipsters moved in. Organic cafes and upper middle class gated communities rose alongside public housing projects soon after.

Now, the poor and working class residents that Mr. Nelson grew up with exist side by side with, but entirely separate from, their newly arrived affluent neighbors.

Hackney was among the neighborhoods affected by last August's riots in London. Viole nt youth gangs are active in its streets. Mr. Nelson says Hackney has “an under-class generation with seemingly limited horizons and ambitions.”

He didn't start the Hackney series with the Olympics in mind. But he has photographed the changes that the event brought - development, displacement of residents and businesses and the sprucing up of the many parks in the borough.

Though there are thousands of photographers covering the Olympics, Mr. Nelson is not one of them. He has a certain ambivalence about the spectacle.

“I don't feel particularly involved in it,” Mr. Nelson said. “I can't park anywhere. It's a headache really. It's just an event that's on TV.”

Soon after the Olympics closing ceremony on Sunday, after the fans and media have departed, Mr. Nelson's life should return to normal. And he will continue his very personal project, “Hackney: A Tale of Two Cities.”

Zed Nelson's project, “Love Me,” about the cultural and commercial forces behind the worldwide obsession with youth and beauty was featured on Lens in 2010. The book was published in 2009 by Contrasto Books.

Mr. Nelson's first book, “Gun Nation” looked at America's deadly love affair with guns. He is represented by Institute for Artist Management.

Follow @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.