Since the 1980s I've walked the streets of London's West End - Oxford Circus, Regents Street, Piccadilly, Leicester Square and The Strand - taking black and white photographs on film. This website is a selection of my photography from London and other global cities.
My latest work has become a contrast of urban photographs before and during the pandemic: from cities around Europe and my local neighbourhood in London.
I've self-published several books and featured in the Museum of London's survey of London street photography. I've also discussed my work as a street photographer at The School of Life and written about it for London Independent Photography. My prints are in the collections of the Royal Photographic Society and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Reflection on the novel "Mrs Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf. Thoughts of individuals woven into their experience of a day in the city.
Two figures interacting with one another through a gesture, eye contact or just being in close proximity to one another. Some intended, others not.
An idea of parallel experience. How we each live together alone in the city. The relationship of our faces.
New York and Tokyo. 24 hour cities. Night as bright and busy as day.
Street life in France, Spain and Portugal. Everyday dramas, staged en plein air.
Spring Summer. Still Street. Still London. Published in London Independent Photography's On The Streets.
European cities have long been shaped and identified by immigrant populations. No news there. It's how they've historically grown and prospered. This time things are different. Attitudes and assumptions are being challenged. The essence of what it is to be a citizen is being fought for, intellectually and physically.
When I think of London I don't think of monuments to the past. I think of people. People like my parents who came here for a better life. But it's not easy. London is a dream as much as a place. The streets don't always glitter with gold. But still people come from all around the world. We make lives, love, work, bring up families. Along the way we keep a connection to the home country. But something else happens. Out on the street we share the everyday. Struggles. Triumphs. Despair. We share space and time. We belong.
I started snapping these images on my phone on my morning runs in my local neighbourhood in London at the start of lockdown in March 2020 to give some meaning to the world around me, as I’ve done all my life, through photographs. By the first summer of lockdown it felt a good moment to reflect on them. The idea for a book to raise money for my local foodbank seemed the least I could do. Like all London boroughs Ealing has its share of deprivation, now at a critical level as a result of the pandemic.
Since then I’ve made three further books, documenting the period up to the official end of restrictions in England in February 2022. They trace a literal path through this time using the sights of the street as a reference point.
