On the first clear Friday in February 2015, I started the long walk beneath the railway tracks from Liverpool Street, east to Bethnal Green, then north through London Fields to Hackney Downs – my first outing on my new Under Tracks project.

And an interesting journey it was… I didn’t think it would be easy, but I didn’t quite expect the flack I got for taking photographs at a few of the arch businesses in the dodgier parts of Bethnal Green. I had not thought it through, but this is the turf where the ‘underworld’ may work? The guys (and dolls?) who maybe shouldn’t be working in the UK at all?  On the journey home, I did seriously think about whether this was going to be a worthwhile photographic project.

However, it wasn’t a fruitless exercise, as from this one trip I did capture one lovely image – Wilco Engineering in Cambridge Heath Road – and several others that looked pretty good.