Paul Trevor59Loss, Time and the Generosity of the Street

In this Eyeshot 50mm interview, British street and documentary photographer Paul Trevor talks about a life spent photographing public life, most of it on the streets of East London. Largely self-taught, he came to photography in the early 1970s and co-founded the Exit Photography Group, learning alongside other photographers who had no school but each other. He speaks about street photography as learning about loss, the shots that haunt you because you missed them, and the strange generosity of the street, which gifts you something amazing on the days you least expect it. He remembers the discipline of the analogue years, the darkroom, the contact sheets, the slow burn, and questions the cult of the decisive moment, preferring to think of a photograph as a sliver of time that keeps revealing itself long after it was made. His new limited-edition book with Eyeshot, Riffs, reopens his black-and-white archive from the 1970s and 1980s, pairing images from different times and places until new meaning appears through rhythm and surprise.