There are many street photographers working today, probably more than there ever have been in the history of photography. But very few of them have Bob Mazzer's boldness, wit, or warmth, or his instinctive eye for a strong composition. The last few years of pandemic and isolation have been hard for everybody. Bob's pictures help remind us we are a fundamentally social species, and their evident love for humanity, in all its great diversity, is immensely comforting in hard times.
'I got a camera for my Bar Mitzvah at thirteen. It was an Ilford Sporty, a little camera of plastic and tin, and I still have the first photograph I took with it - a picture of the London Hilton. But the genesis of my photography was at Woodberry Down School, where they had a darkroom. It was all down to my Art Master, Mike Palmer. He put the books of Irving Penn and Cartier Bresson in front of me and said, "You can do this".
If you love people, I think they respond to that and find it perfectly natural to be photographed. I love taking photographs of people on the tube, I say to them, "You look fantastic, can I take your picture?" and they say, "Yes".'
48 pages of photographs and texts
Currently out of print