I went to a photography book launch this evening, to hear John Claridge talk about his body of work, capturing the East End of London.

He’s lived an interesting life. He grew up in Plaistow and was compelled to keep taking photos, and capturing ordinary life around him. He talked about his commercial work life, working from the age of 15 for an advertising agency and touring the world.

His photos are like paintings, seeing the beauty in the ordinary, and normally uncaptured street scenes and people going about their everyday lives.

And my photo today was travelling on the tube and seeing some new moquette on the Bakerloo line. Yes, I’m a tube geek! For a lot of John’s photos, people would come up to him and ask him what he was doing, and comment that he was ‘weird’, especially taking a picture of lingerie mannequins in a shop window, looking like a Degas painting. So I embraced the weird looks from people on the tube as I see beauty in moquette!