The Reader.

For a year I walked past the same bench in Oxford.

Most afternoons, around four o’clock, he’d be there.

Always reading.

Sometimes a paperback with yellowed pages. Sometimes a newspaper. Sometimes a cigarette resting between his fingers while he finished a chapter.

The seasons changed before he did.

Leaves turned, disappeared, and came back again. The light shifted from soft autumn evenings to cold winter afternoons and back once more. His jackets changed. His hair got a little greyer.

A walking stick appeared. The books kept coming.

We never spoke.

It never felt necessary.

Street photography gets described as chasing moments, but sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes it’s returning to the same place often enough that life reveals itself without asking.

I don’t know his name.

I just know that for a year, if I walked down this street at four in the afternoon, I’d glance at that bench before I looked anywhere else.

Eventually I realised I wasn’t photographing a stranger.

I was photographing time.

Oxford, Autumn 2024 - Autumn 2025

The Reader.