I’m a self-taught hobbyist living in Birmingham city centre and I’ve been shooting for around 6 years or so. The majority of my images are captured in and around the city but I deliberately go out of my way to shoot the parts that everyone else ignores or walks by without realising they’re there – I’ve little or no interest in the major tourist attraction sights of the city, its the underbelly and the everyday that fascinates me – I’ve always rooted for the underdog as it were.
All of this is heavily influenced by one of my major loves – graffiti culture and the lifestyle of a graffiti writer, me wandering empty streets and seeing the world through their eyes, looking for the ‘spot’. Its no secret I’m friends with a lot of writers and they inspire me greatly in looking at the city on a different level to the everyday comings and goings of normal society
I’m also fascinated by abandoned and derelict locations and the views they contain, again partly inspired by graff writers, but also for the history of the location (I always research the history where possible of these locations) – I dream of what they must have looked like in their prime with the hustle and bustle of people scurrying about them, juxtaposed with their now empty shells.
There are recurring themes of liminality and loneliness in my shots, me much preferring the devoidness of life within a frame versus a busy overcrowded vista to try and provoke an emotional response within the viewer, which I put down to my love of musicians such as Burial and Jon Hopkins.
But in short, if I see it – and if it invokes a memory or an emotion in me, I will shoot it.
