Liverpool : 1972 – 2025 Volume 1
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This photomontage is built around a dialogue between two moments on the same beach, separated by roughly three decades. The black-and-white photograph was taken thirty years ago, while the colour image was made in 2025. Together they explore memory, place and photography itself.
The distinctive shingle of Hastings beach appears almost timeless. Although individual stones have undoubtedly shifted over the course of thirty years, the beach as a whole retains its familiar character. This constancy provides an anchor for the work. After taking the earlier photograph, I noticed a small fragment of decorated pottery resting among the pebbles—a modest trace of human presence beside the manufactured material that conveniently frames one of Hastings’ iconic fishing boats, resting on the beach and identified by its registration number, RX87.
The contemporary colour photograph functions almost as an archaeological surface from which the earlier image emerges. It suggests that the past is not separate from the present but embedded within it, waiting to be rediscovered.
The fishing vessel dominates the composition through a low viewpoint and strong central perspective. Its bow rises monumentally, almost architectural in scale, while a solitary figure standing near the sea appears tiny by comparison. This contrast reinforces themes of labour, tradition and the enduring relationship between people and the sea. The expansive, dramatic sky further emphasises the boat’s imposing presence while lending the scene a sense of timelessness.
The fishing boat and the beach both belong to Hastings’ long maritime history, yet they exist on different temporal scales. Boats are repaired or replaced, timber decays and photographs gradually fade, while the pebbles are endlessly rearranged by the tides. The work asks what truly endures. Is it the landscape, the traditions of the fishing community, or the photographic image that preserves experience?
The composition also plays with scale and time. The earlier photograph occupies only part of the frame, while the contemporary colour image surrounds it. This creates the impression that memory inhabits a specific, bounded space within the wider continuum of the present. The beach extends beyond the edges of the historic photograph, suggesting that time continues while particular moments remain preserved within it.
The figure in the earlier photograph is my partner, Hazuan Hashim. Thirty years later, Hazuan was once again standing beside me on the same beach, watching the sea as I made the contemporary photograph in 2025. That quiet continuity adds a deeply personal thread to the work, connecting not only two photographs but two lives across three decades.
When I made this photograph in Dhaka in 2009, I was struck by how much the city had changed since my earlier visits in the 1990s. New roads, buildings and relentless development had reshaped much of the urban landscape. Yet one thing remained reassuringly familiar: the cycle rickshaw, still the lifeblood of the city’s transport system.
The rickshaw puller leans forward with all his weight, his posture revealing the sheer physical effort required to keep moving through Dhaka’s crowded streets. Behind him, two passengers sit almost casually among enormous coils of black plastic piping. The contrast always makes me smile. During my time in Bangladesh, I never ceased to be amazed by what could be carried on a rickshaw. I saw everything from refrigerators to motorbikes balanced on these superb machines, each load a reminder that necessity often breeds remarkable ingenuity.
For me, this photograph says something about the way Dhaka has always adapted to the demands of a rapidly growing city. There were rarely neat divisions between passenger transport and freight. If a rickshaw could carry it, then it probably would. Every journey represented an opportunity to earn a living.
What also strikes me is that the labour in this scene extends beyond the man pulling the rickshaw. Everyone in the frame appears to be part of the city’s daily economy, whether transporting goods, travelling to work or moving between jobs. It is an ordinary moment, yet one that speaks of the countless individual efforts that keep a great city functioning.
By 2009, Dhaka had become one of the world’s largest cities, with a metropolitan population approaching 15 million. Despite the growing number of cars, buses and motorised vehicles, cycle rickshaws remained indispensable. Estimates suggested there were between half a million and more than one million operating across Greater Dhaka, many of them unlicensed. Together they carried millions of passengers every day and provided work for hundreds of thousands of men, many of whom had migrated from rural Bangladesh after losing agricultural livelihoods or in search of better opportunities.
Rickshaw pulling was, and remains, punishing work. Long days of twelve to fourteen hours were common, with modest earnings at the end of them. Yet watching these men negotiate impossible traffic while carrying passengers, oversized cargo—or both—gave me a deep respect for the strength, balance and skill their work demanded.
Cycle rickshaws first appeared in Dhaka during the 1930s under British colonial rule. Following the Partition of India in 1947, and especially after Bangladesh gained independence in 1971, their numbers expanded rapidly as rural migration fuelled the city’s growth. By the early twenty-first century, the rickshaw had become far more than a means of transport. It had become one of the defining symbols of Dhaka itself.
Whenever I look at these photographs, I think of the rickshaw not simply as a vehicle but as a symbol of resilience and adaptability. It represents the informal economy at work, the extraordinary versatility of everyday technology, and above all the human effort that has powered Dhaka’s remarkable growth. I will never forget travelling through the city by rickshaw. Those journeys brought me closer to the rhythm of everyday life than any taxi or private car ever could, and they remain among my happiest memories of Bangladesh.
Exploring Underground Culture: Berlin, New York, London
The first two photographs in this blog explore two complementary aspects of New York’s underground: the public choreography of movement and the private worlds that exist within it.
The first image is built around structure, rhythm and contrast. The bold station sign dominates the upper third of the frame, immediately anchoring the location, while the stationary train forms a strong horizontal band beneath it. The commuters waiting on the platform create a second layer of vertical forms, almost like punctuation marks against the station’s rigid geometry. I deliberately used a slow shutter speed, allowing the figure on the left to blur as they walked through the scene. This fleeting movement contrasts with the stillness of the other passengers, who appear almost statuesque. The woman stepping off the train looks down towards the platform, perhaps avoiding eye contact with those waiting to board. The image reflects a familiar urban paradox: hundreds of people sharing the same physical space while remaining socially isolated, each absorbed in their own thoughts and destination.
The photograph below tells a different story. It is quieter, more intimate and more personal. The three women appear to be friends, and judging by their expressions, the conversation was thoroughly engaging. From the opposite side of the carriage it was impossible to hear a single word over the relentless noise of the train, yet their body language says everything. In contrast to the anonymity of the platform scene, this image captures a fleeting moment of genuine human connection within the crowded environment of the subway.
These photographs inevitably reminded me of the work of Walker Evans, whose remarkable series of candid photographs of New York subway passengers was made between 1938 and 1941. Evans concealed a 35mm camera beneath his coat, using a hidden cable release to photograph unsuspecting travellers as they sat opposite him. The resulting images are extraordinary for their honesty. Free from self-consciousness or performance, his subjects appear lost in thought, weary after work, curious, anxious or quietly reflective. The photographs reveal the emotional richness that can exist within ordinary, everyday moments and remain one of the most influential bodies of street photography ever produced. If you have never seen them, they are well worth searching for online—not only as a masterclass in candid photography but also as a profound study of humanity in a shared public space.
The Forgotten Liverpool: Stories from the 1980s
When I took this photograph in 1980, Liverpool was in the midst of profound economic and social upheaval. It later emerged that the government had placed the city into a policy of “managed decline”, and public investment had fallen to an historic low.
The distant tower of the Cathedral serves as a visual anchor. In the foreground lie the remains of demolished terraced houses: fractured brick walls, collapsed roofs, empty foundations, and piles of rubble. I climbed onto a wall to make this photograph—something I would be unable to do today.
The route to the Cathedral is quite literally obstructed by ruins. Knowing what happened just a year later, during the 1981 Toxteth uprising, adds another layer of meaning to the image. Although the photograph predates those events, it now seems almost prophetic. This abandoned landscape speaks of neglect, disinvestment, and communities placed under immense pressure. What I remember most, however, is the silence. As I stood there, I found myself imagining the lives of the people who had once filled these small terraced houses with activity and routine.
I have always believed that a city’s true identity resides not in its great monuments but in the streets and houses where ordinary people live. I placed the Cathedral beyond this landscape of abandonment because Liverpool’s history cannot be understood through its landmarks alone. It must also be read in the traces of the communities that were displaced or erased.
The Dialogue of Two Generations in London
Here we have two photographs separated by roughly four decades: the central figure from Brick Lane in the 1980s and the younger figure from Canary Wharf in 2026. I’ve tried to create a dialogue about continuity, displacement, and the changing identity of East London.
I photographed the older man as he walked slowly down Brick Lane with the aid of a walking stick. I cut out his figure and rephotographed it. His downward gaze, cigarette, and stillness suggest introspection and fatigue. His bald head and worn jacket give him a sculptural presence; to me, he is like a monument to a disappearing generation. He becomes the emotional anchor around which everything else revolves.
In contrast, the smaller figure on the left is walking quickly across a bridge in Canary Wharf, phone in hand rather than engaging with his surroundings. He represents a very different relationship with the city. He is detached from the older man and occupies another psychological and historical space.
Two worlds collide here. The Brick Lane man stands for the older East End, while the Canary Wharf figure represents the digital, financial, and globally connected London of today.
These are two lives occupying the same geographical landscape but belonging to different historical moments. Are these figures connected by history, or divided by it? The two subjects move through parallel worlds without ever meeting.
The red horizontal bands resemble veins, suggesting that a connection between past and present still remains. I see the work as a meditation on how photomontage can compress decades into a single, unresolved moment.
