A young woman holding a La Senza Bag Oxford Street London Uk Photograph

I am a London based photographer whose work has been published and exhibited in a variety of different fields with some finding its way into public and private collections, notably the Museum of London. I continue to work on long term personal documentary projects and have done so since 1983. I received an Arts Council National Lottery Grant in 1997-8 to continue my English Carnival project which was shot over twelve years. The others from three to five years. The work I am showing on Saatchi Online is one of three projects I am presently working on. It was started in March 2007 and is work in progress and I have written this short statement to help define it: Each City has its own unique and individual signature. Its fabric that is the layout of buildings, streets and open spaces defining its own distinctive character. The centre of London is not lived in the same way as many other large cities; most of those who work there will daily commute in and out and return home to its suburbs. It is generally a daytime city, its business and shopping hours dictating the flow of people. Over the last few years it has also become increasingly themed with well-defined leisure, shopping, business and tourist areas. I have been trying to define the changing character of modern London by returning to photograph on the streets and public areas that I have been familiar with for over twenty-five years. To photograph and capture the ebb and flow of the streets can be as frustrating as it is also mind absorbing. An ordinary situation can explode into a dynamic moment at the blink of an eye, revealing a subtle mosaic of urban behaviour that at its best can escape the familiar frame of photographic cliché bringing together elements of visual geometry that can be difficult to label but fascinating to look at. Paul Baldesare