Liverpool : 1972 – 2025 Volume 1
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Brick Lane and Beyond: East London in the 80s
1988.
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Man With A Suitcase On Brick Lane
I created this mixed-media work using a photograph I took on Brick Lane in the East End of London in the early 1980s. At that time many of the buildings along the lane were derelict or in serious disrepair. The man in the image has likely just bought the old suitcase at the Sunday market and is using a pushchair to transport it. Alternatively, he may have finished trying to sell the contents of the suitcase and is now heading home. Whatever the case, he appears quietly pleased with himself.
In developing the piece, I used photographic collage combined with graphic abstraction to explore themes of movement, time, and the individual’s relationship to structured environments. The man’s warmth and relaxed, almost cheerful demeanour contrasts sharply with the stylized background: a pink geometric grid that fills the upper portion of the image and a textured blue ground punctuated by organic, puddle-like shapes. This juxtaposition of documentary imagery and artificial design elements introduces a subtle tension, hinting—perhaps retrospectively—at the highly networked, commerce-driven landscape that would emerge around Brick Lane several decades later.
My buoyant subject appears isolated within this abstract environment, suggesting ideas of displacement, anonymity, or the quiet burdens of everyday life. His movement from left to right reinforces the sense of an ongoing journey, while the large suitcase may symbolically carry traces of personal history or accumulated experience. Through contrasts of texture, scale, and media, the composition aims to invite reflection on the relationship between the individual and the wider systems that shape modern urban life. Looking back, it is striking how profoundly life around Brick Lane has changed over the past forty years.
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Capturing Everyday Life in East London Through the Years
I used to see this man regularly in and around Brick Lane in the 1980s. On this occasion he’s absorbed in a book, seated on a discarded fruit box outside a closed shop.
Taken during the Sunday market, he has created his own private bubble despite the bustle around him—a moment of calm and introspection amid the everyday life of Brick Lane in the mid-1980s. As public spaces feel less public these days and people are expected to keep moving, I wonder what he would make of what Brick Lane has become?
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here
Snapshots of East London’s Evolving Public Spaces
This candid moment inside an underground carriage was captured as I was sitting down, looking up, and about to alight at Whitechapel station. The two men appear detached from their surroundings, both looking down at their smartphones. Even though people are physically close in a crowded space, they are mentally elsewhere, reflecting a common modern phenomenon: digital absorption in public spaces.
When I first started travelling on the Underground in 1982, passengers would read newspapers or books. Generally, people would avoid eye contact, stare at the advertising, or have a snooze. Visitors from outside London often find this behaviour a bit strange. It’s certainly different from travelling on a bus in Liverpool.
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here
Today is International Women’s day. These photographs celebrate women the world over. I hope they challenge the idea that progress is largely brought about by men. We still have a long way to go before injustice based purely on a persons sex is eradicated. “Women’s freedom is the sign of social freedom.” – Rosa Luxemburg.
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here
