Brick Lane: A Visual Journey Through Time
Brick Lane is usually a busy public space but this dignified man, pushing a trolley, is alone. The emptiness of the pavement contributes to a feeling of solitude. He’s surrounded by posters advertising music releases, commercial imagery and consumer-driven city life. For me he symbolises generational continuity within a rapidly changing urban space that’s slowly pushing people on lower incomes out of the area.
The pressure of regeneration has forced many local Bangladeshi run businesses out of Brick Lane. The local community needs genuinely affordable homes and workspaces rather than soulless corporate style developments that push up rents on that drive out independents and threaten the long established Bangladeshi community.
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here.
Exploring ‘Woman In Cheshire Street’: A Mixed Media Collage
This layered photomontage or mixed-media collage combines photography, cartographic fragments, and painterly interventions.
On the left side, I wanted to create imagery that suggested waves and the sea. Embedded within this are fragments of maps — suggesting geography, travel and memory.
The fragmented maps and fluid forms on one side deliberately contrast with the solitary human presence on the other. The figure’s obscured features and luminous outline imply both anonymity and universality—representing a displaced person, or an individual caught between territories. The red enclosure is there to symbolize confinement, while the blue map-space suggests the broader world beyond which she may or not have been part of. Who knows? For me the one certainty I have about this woman is that she’s a majestic figure that stands out against everyone else in the Sunday morning market next to Brick Lane.
I photographed her in Cheshere Street East London in 1982. I’ve always regarded my 35mm negatives as precious and this image, this woman (now long dead) is precious to me. I’ve often wondered if life had been good to her; where had she been in her life?
Her figure is a negative with glowing white and dark tones that obscure facial detail to emphasize the mystery of her life.
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here.
Solidarity and Activism: Liverpool’s Peaceful Protests and more
The above photograph captures two women seated closely together participating in a protest against the Genocide in Gaza. They both convey engagement, concern, solidarity and a shared purpose.
I focused tightly on the two women, allowing their expressions—somber, thoughtful, resolute—to convey the emotional tone of the whole protest.
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here.
