As an outsider, walking around the streets of London for the first time was an incredible experience. I set out with 16 days to explore this multifaceted city and document its people and sights as best I could, and only now at the end of my trip do I truly feel that I have found my feet in the city.
Perhaps its just a sign of coming from the relatively small city of Port Elizabeth that it took so long for me to move around with more confidence and have a better sense of how things work in a city such as London.
My main aim during my travels is to seek out and create a visual narrative that broadens our general perception of a place, a city, a culture or a social story, giving viewers a deeper knowledge through my personal observations and findings.
Perhaps it’s the difficult I find putting my observations into words that inspires me to keep on shooting. Photographs can so easily break time and reality into tiny tableaus of society, transferring a mass of information into a simple visual medium that allows us to investigate the world we live in. My hope is never to create images that are pleasant, or nice (a cup of tea is nice!), but rather present photographs that cause reflection and introspection, inspiring viewers to consider the actual moment and try to make sense of the scene as it was taken, perhaps even drawing connections to their own experiences in order to better understand the moment and how it relates to their own life.
Whatever the scene, I believe depictions of seemingly everyday humanity can help us to grow and understand each other and ourselves. If only we take the time to let it happen.
Allow yourself to observe life, and you may just find you gain a deeper understanding of the chaos we all live in.
Follow the link below to view my images of the UK:
