My love of portraiture started on the street. During a year out of university I used my camera to get over depression, it got me out of the house, meeting people and back on my feet. I got hooked. I could walk up to anyone who looked interesting, start a conversation with them and join their life for a brief moment. It was exciting too, you never quite knew what was going to happen or what people would say. Since then I’ve photographed street portraits all over the world, from America to Hong Kong, Paris to Johannesburg, and many places in between. It’s always a rush persuading people to give you a minute of their time, and then of course the challenge really begins because you have to build an interesting relationship with your sitter in a very short time.
For this project I wanted to capture people on my home turf, in Brixton. I love it here, the area around the station and market is always full of life, people from all different lifestyles and backgrounds rush past each other. They play music, shout, dance, talk on their phones, take selfies, go shopping, argue and love. One minute a reggae artist is rapping at you, and the next a lady is proudly proclaiming she’s 82. All of life is on display here. So I photographed it.
