Robert Watson, Blackpool, 2025
I’ve been thinking a lot about obsession. I recently watched pianist Lang Lang perform at the Liverpool Philharmonic, I found myself recognising something familiar. The mix of precision, repetition, and surrender. The way an artist can lose themselves completely in what they do, trusting that instinct and discipline will eventually meet somewhere in the middle.
Street photography, at its best, comes from the same place. The greats such as Frank, Winogrand and Meyerowitz shared a quiet obsession with how life feels. They didn’t chase spectacle; they chased truth. Their pictures weren’t about how things looked, but about what it felt like to stand right there in that moment.
That’s what I’ve always tried to do. To photograph not what is happening, but how it feels to be there, to be shoulder to shoulder with the crowd, close enough to smell the city. Black and white film helps me do that. It slows me down, makes me choose carefully. And when I’m in the darkroom developing what I’ve seen, it feels like the process comes full circle.
I’m not interested in perfection. I’m interested in honesty. In those moments that, years from now, might tell someone how life once felt.
