I only really began two years ago. Before that, photography was most definitely a hobby, something that I would do just on holiday. I had a film camera and after ten years I got a bit tired of it. Two years ago I bought a digital camera and then I decided to spend more time going around London and it just snowballed very quickly. I had an actual job in graphic design, but today I just do photography. Around a year ago I realised that if you want to get really good at something –to be the very best– you have to do it every day. If you don't do it every day, you’re always going to be mediocre.

My battle with graphic design was that I was doing interesting things, but there were always so many obstacles before the end product. Photography is just so immediate and I have complete control over it. With design is not necessarily understandable that you have intelligently designed something, people don’t take notice, whereas a photograph is more engaging and more entertaining. You can have a conversation about it, you can really inspire someone's imagination. Photography ticks most of the boxes that make me happy as an artist. At one point I thought to myself: “what would I be happy to do for free for the rest of my life?” and photography was it. I'm happy to go out every day with my camera and just take pictures for myself.

I think it definitely influences what I photograph. I have lived in Bethnal Green since I was born and I've seen it changing so much from what I remember from being a kid... so I guess photography is my way of saving what I'm seeing now. At the same time, photography in London is my way of exploring a huge city that I think I know – but I definitely don't know. It's just an excuse to spend more time going to places I wouldn't necessarily go to, and speak to people on the street.

Because I've done it for a couple of years now, I know where I have my best days – it's like a cluster from the edge of Leicester Square up to Chinatown. I'm editing a book right now and half of the photos that I've got have been taken in those 10 square meters, it’s really strange. In the summer I was walking from my house in Bethnal Green all the way to Westminster, and then through to Trafalgar Square and up to Marble Arch. Then I'll go all the way back down to London Eye. Just walking. Usually I also go to Oxford Street and Regents Street, places where everyone in London gravitates to – tourists because they choose to go there, Londoners because they have to. They go shopping there and they work there, which brings out the best in people because they are all stressed.

It really depends in what mood I'm in. Some days I feel really positive, so I take someone's photograph as an excuse to talk to them because they just look really interesting and I think they have a good story. Some days I can be moody, so I take someone's picture and then slightly ignore them. Of a hundred people I photograph, one person would get angry, I'd probably have 30 conversations, and the rest would just ignore what happened. But I definitely use photography as a means to talk to people. There are always people I want to engage with. You have to be able to talk to the people that you're taking pictures of, otherwise there is no point.

It's hard to explain because I don't necessarily look for certain people. I look for someone doing something weird that I don't really understand, something slightly odd. Then I take the photograph and I try to examine it. I guess it’s my form of entertainment. Even before I started taking pictures, I was looking at the world and picking up obscure things that people don't normally see. Many people when they see my photographs say: "Oh that's so weird!" But it happens a lot of the time, people just don't notice it. 

I took a lot of photos of landscapes. Because I used to shoot in film and I was a graphic designer, I had all of these restrictions on what I could photograph. It was an expensive thing to do and I didn’t want to miss a shot, so I wouldn't really take any risks. I would take pictures of a landscape or maybe of a street scene, but it would always be super wide, and I never really gave myself the opportunity to explore the camera and what I was really interested in. I was effectively doing travel photography, savouring the moments that I was experiencing during my holidays. But then as soon as I had a digital camera I started to photograph 1000 people a day. If you look at my Instagram from the first photo to now, you can see the progression.

I joined it as soon as I got my digital camera. Street photography is an art form of the people by the people. Everyone is on Instagram and everyone is looking at street photography, and street photography portrays a lot of people who are on Instagram. Basically it shows people an art form on a platform that is consumed by everybody and, at the same time, it is consumed by people that are taking photographs. Street photography before the internet was a very limited circle. My parents wouldn't even know what it was, if it was an actual thing. Now people can see it on their smartphones, so more people engage with it and there is a bigger audience. It just shows that there are so many people that actually enjoy street photography.

We are attracted to places that we don't know much about. China was definitely one of them. We really wanted to go to Africa because everyone thinks that it’s probably not a great place to go in terms of safety, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to try to change people's opinion of it, showing a different side. We only had four weeks, but in that time we tried to go as deep as we could, trying to photograph in a way that focuses on emotions and how people live their lives, in a positive way.

I think in Ghana I was not expecting the people to be the way they are. When we turned up we were super intimidated because people just shouted at us and we couldn't really understand why. Obviously because of the language barrier, I had no idea of what they were saying. We actually realised that they were just talking to us, so by the end of the trip people shouted at us and I'd just go to talk to them and then we’d be like best friends. I thought they were angry at us just for being there, but when I went to talk to them I discovered they were fine about that. I understand a lot more about African culture now.

The recipe for Tripod City is that each of us has a completely different style. As soon as you begin to overlap, the concept becomes void. When we go out together, we have to be the extremes of ourselves. That’s why all the photos that I have from Ghana are close-ups, whereas Chris (Lee) has a wider angle and Paul (Storrie) does portraits. When I’m shooting in London, I sometimes go wide and sometimes I set up portraits, whereas in Ghana I was doing none of that because we always try to push what is unique about us to the very extreme. I think it has been good for us because it has forced us to really think about our identities as photographers.

Whenever I'm photographing, before I take the picture I think in a split second whether the shot that I'm about to take will live on a wall or in a book, or in both. If it doesn't in either, I don't take the picture, there is no point. But because I’m a graphic designer, I see most of my work in a book – I love to take someone on a journey through a book. 

Everyday! I'm super self-critical. I haven't taken photos for about a month, so I had time to look at which are my best photos so far. When I go out tomorrow, I need to get a photo that is better than those. How can I do that? I have to do it differently, I can't just carry on doing the same thing because I'm just going to have 20 identical photos. It's always about going that extra mile. I think I'm at a point where I'm almost happy with my identity as a photographer. But there is always room to try something different. For example, I usually get really close to my subjects. The reason why I do so is that I can get rid of the background and of all the interferences, so the photograph is only about the person. Now my challenge is to achieve the same focus on the subject, whilst capturing the whole scene. Those photographs are difficult because there is always something in the way. I guess that's part of the reason why I like to be so close, because I'm in complete control. I'm not a photographer who relies on the elements, I'm definitely a control freak. That's why I use a flash. I got sick and tired of people doing a great thing with the sunlight coming from the wrong angle.