I made a short documentary in 2015 that was a portrait of the man who set up The Clockwork Studios artists spaces in 1985. The studios had commissioned me to make a film that would help them promote the artists however it soon became clear that one mans influence made the studio stand out so we decided to make it a portrait of the man who dreamt it up in 1985, Noel Perkins.

These photographs are a short diary of living in London for almost 20 years. As a street photographer I have always tried to treat everywhere as a democratic subject. London with its vast sprawl has a natural energy fed from this hive of villages belying the notion that it is just one city. It is many things. Old, overcrowded, European, multicultural, disrespectful, embracing. It’s alive and it doesn’t care about you but I have enjoyed walking its streets open to its life. I think any city on this scale is easy to hate but if you look and see you can find whatever you want. It’s an energy. You can never capture it. For every photograph I take I am acutely aware of the many moments around me, passing me by, the many lives and stories that churn and churn. Perhaps the joy of recording and choosing an image is the opportunity to look at it and imagine what might be going on, for that moment.

I’m looking for Pat Carthy. All I have to go on is a name in my notebook from the night of an Irish Traditional Music session in The Crane Bar in Galway in November 2009. When I returned to track him down, no one seemed to know who he was let alone where and I’m still searching.