Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity: a series of photography books set in a Soho of the mind.
Around seventeen years ago I stumbled upon a semi-hidden world which only truly came alive well after midnight and which existed in the heart of London, in red-light drenched basements behind unmarked Soho doors.
It was a place and time inhabited by characters who could have tumbled from films of their own making, a sideways glance at a reimagined indefinable past; a world of modern dav spivs, foot-high quiffs, lizard skin-lined cars, tooting saxophones, unlicensed speakeasies and sharp suits.
More than a decade later I began to revisit my old haunts, companions and music.
The Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity series of books was the result; in part a tribute to a world where I spent some of my youth and also a photographic soundtrack to the imaginary film it inspired and which has played behind my eyes ever since – an attempt to capture my own particular Soho of the mind.
The books are a document of this way of life’s enduring nature, one which ignores the wider comings and goings of fashion. It concentrates on a core group of people who are in it for the long haul and with those who are at the very heart of it I have attempted to capture the sense of something ingrained deeply within them; that they are the right man for the job and could be found behind these unmarked doors fifty years ago or fifty years from now.
Full previews of the books can be viewed via their website:
