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Photographer Rick Senley’s obsession with photography. Every bus journey, every train ride, every commute. Even if he’s driving. He has to take pictures..

I love being alone, love having time and space to think. Except I don’t. Because when I think, I ruminate; when I ruminate, I think. When I think again, I get anxious. When I get anxious, I get depressed. When I get depressed…. Well, it’s best I don’t go there.

I also love looking at the world. Except people’s clothes and hair and faces and voices set off my OCD. And it’s my OCD that drives much of my photography – an obsession to get the next picture, and the next and the next.

If the light is good and I haven’t got my camera (I don’t have a smartphone) or I’m stuck in a meeting or having dinner with someone, or seeing my psychotherapy clients, I feel as if I’m suffocating or drowning, trapped in a world that doesn’t understand my need to take pictures, to snap and click and press over and over and over again.

Every bus journey, every train ride, every time I step onto a boat. Every commute to work. Even if I’m driving. I have to take pictures. I can’t miss anything; an angle, a shadow, a face, a reflection, a perfect mess of colours that strangely calms my anxiety, loosens my throat and lungs.

On a bus I’m unseen, unheard. I spy on other peoples’ lives. Without my camera and a window to sit next to. Well, it’s best you don’t sit next to me.

Woolwich
Whitechapel
Wellington Arch
Wapping
Wapping
Tower Bridge and the Shard
South Kensington
Somers Town
Willesden
Shoreditch
Royal Docks
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly
Peckham
Peckham
Peckham
Peckham
Peckham
Peckham
Peckham
Peckham
North Greenwich
Nine Elms
New Cross
Camberwell
Leytonstone
King’s Cross
Islington
Hyde Park Corner
Hyde Park Corner
Hackney
Greenwich
Green Park
Globe Town
Finsbury Park
Farringdon
Charlton
Cavendish Square
Brentford
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The photographer

Rick Senley

Rick Senley is an obsessive, compulsive photographer and his camera is a means of escape, identity, hiding and adventure.

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