Series

Where Was

A street holds what people leave behind, and what is quickly cleaned up, built over or forgotten. These photographs, made in London and in China, keep the trace and lose the subject: a pair of gloves with no hands, a steelworks turned tourist attraction while new towers cover what it was, a sand sculpture made to be washed away. Faces are turned or blurred; people have just left.

I once set these pictures aside because something was missing. Absence here is evidence, not emptiness. The title is left open, and each picture completes it differently.

Yellow rubber gloves hanging in an open window, with no hands in them — 01Where the hands were

A former steelworks, now a tourist attraction, with a worker small against it — 02Where the steel was made

A man walking away down a tiled underpass, a painted heart on the wall ahead — 03Where he was headed

A person sitting against a barrier while commuters pass in motion blur — 04Where no one was looking

A crowd climbing a staircase seen from behind, one red jacket among dark coats — 05Where the red jacket was

Two tourists holding a sightseeing leaflet open in front of their faces — 06Where the way was marked

Two elderly people standing in a doorway looking out of the frame, a cat at their feet — 07Where they were looking

A man digging into a beach to carve a sand sculpture while a girl stands at the water's edge — 08Where the sand was shaped

Food scraps on a pavement, a pigeon, and a woman with a dog sitting against a post — 09Where the crumbs were

Carnival performers walking away down a road while a woman in white sits on a bench — 10Where the music was