Location: Greenwich, London
Brief: To document life in the Greenwich Town Social Club
Commissioned by: self-assigned
I’ve always tried to document the area around me using a camera and to photograph overlooked or potentially uninteresting subjects. It’s just good photographic practice to be shooting as regularly as possible and not necessarily commercially.
The Greenwich Town Social Club was up the road from me when I lived in London and for a few months in 2006, I would photograph there every Monday night. My interest in social clubs had been started by the Falmouth Labour Club several years previously, and I also loved the associated documentary work of photographers Eugene Richards, PH Emerson and Martin Parr.
This was the last era when you could smoke indoors in the UK. Digital SLRs had come of age: I sold all my Nikon kit and bought the first generation Canon 5D – which all these images were shot with. I met some extraordinary characters, captured moments of boredom and stillness – as well as some unforgettable images at the men-only nights. Darts matches, bingo nights, karaoke, cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes…