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In this colour photograph Cath Harries looks at the camera and smiles as she pauses for a photograph while out door hunting, wearing a dark blue leather jacket and a scarf.

Cath Harries in Podcast

Written by Sheldrake Editor on . Posted in News.

Yesterday, Cath Harries starred in a podcast, telling Country Life about her 15-year quest to find and photograph the most incredible doors in London.

The result is her book Doors of London, in which she joined the house historian Melanie Backe-Hansen to create a totally new way of looking at the city: door by door. By the time she finished, she had 3,500 images of tall doors, thin doors, grand or shabby doors through to plain weird doors, all adorned with their own matching knobs and knockers, letterboxes, bell pushes, fanlights, stained glass. With Melanie Backe-Hansen and the editors of Sheldrake Press, she selected 500 of the most incredible doors to go in the book. 

‘The way people portray themselves is through their doors,’ says Cath. People like to decorate their door in their own way, painting it another colour or choosing a new knocker (in her case an owl). Over the years she has uncovered an incredible variety of doors, from the tallest in England to the softest, resembling a Chesterfield sofa.

In this colour photograph are three doors. The first one has a white background with rainbow-coloured hearts and a girl in black and white doing yoga, with a daisy between her feet. The second one is a big black door with a fanlight and lantern and a small bush on the left side. The last one is a red, yellow and blue Art Deco door with stained glass sunburst motif with three stars
Click the doors to listen to the podcast.

Link to podcast

Listen to her talking about doors in The Country Life Podcast. Over 30 minutes, her genial host James Fisher probes her about her passion for photography, what sort of door she hates, her favourite door and the door she was banned from photographing.

See more of her book at Doors of London.