Cranes
Cranes are harbingers of change. They puncture the view of London from my flat. Its a view that is constantly changing. Cranes signal a new building often following the demolition of an old one. The slender beauty of these cranes was replaced by a new hospital which obliterated the view of Canary Wharf.
These cranes towering over Spitalfields market announce the march of City developers into the East End.
Beggars
This lady was a regular feature at the entrance to Aldgate East tube station. In this position she could get the attention of passengers leaving and entering the station.
This lady was photographed outside the entrance to newsagents on Whitechapel Rd. The sad boys head is meant to illicit money for the ‘Spastics society’.
These children live a precarious life on the streets of Dhaka in Bangladesh. Begging from motorists is learnt at an early age.
Kay Jordan
Kay Jordan was a tireless campaigner for small businesses and social enterprises in the Spitalfields area. More than anyone she understood how rising property prices and the expansion of the City would threaten community based business initiatives. For decades she devoted herself to building and protecting social enterprise that addressed the needs of the local community.
As the Director of the Spitalfields Small Business Association she oversaw the refurbishment and development of over 62,000 square feet of derelict and underused buildings around Spitalfields. This SSBA initiative created over 100 new managed workspaces.
Kay always took the side of the underdog and was never impressed by the shiny rhetoric and money of big developers. Her intelligent and incisive attention to detail provided local residents and community organisations with a powerful advocacy in planning matters. Kay would cross swords with anyone to defend the interests of Spitalfields. Her principal weapons were the truth and integrity she deployed in her advocacy for the part of London she had grown to love.
These photographs of Kay were taken in 2004 in Paris. The visit was arranged to build links with community groups who were defending their area in the face of ‘regeneration’. Her untimely death has robbed Spitalfields of a selfless champion.
Tony Blair as baby Jesus
In 2003 I held an exhibition which launched Photomonth for that year called Comrades. Hosted at the Four Corners gallery it took a satirical look at the Labour government of the day. This photomontage uses a Hungarian painting of the Virgin and Child with Tony Blair’s head.
This photomontage imagines Tony Blair as a peace protester being arrested close to the Houses of Parliament. I photographed the Labour Party leadership extensively in the early 90’s for Labour Party news. The images I accrued through this work were the principle resource for the exhibition.
Here we have the simple substitution of a Tony Blair head in Caravaggio’s masterpiece depicting the supper at Emmaus.
The exhibition also included straight photographs of Labour politicians which were accompanied with quotes from the subjects.





























































