A key
figure in postwar British photography, Roger Mayne is particularly celebrated
for his photographs of children, made in the streets of his working-class West
London neighborhood in the period 1956 to 1961. “My reason for photographing
the poor streets is that I love them,” Mayne said.

Although
he published work as a photojournalist earlier, 1956 was the moment when he
first exhibited his work and began to photograph for himself as a freelancer
rather than on assignment, a shift that brought freedom in both subject and
style. He printed large for the period and with high contrast to boost the
graphic punch of his images. Although working-class children at play in and
around Southam Street—an impoverished area that would shortly be demolished as
part of slum clearance—were his principal subject, “Teddy Boys” and jiving
girls, child smokers, and mothers pushing prams were all caught in his lens as
well. Here, neighborhood boys stand on the Paddington station platform
“trainspotting,” playfully competing to catch the numbers of passing trains, a
game that took as quick an eye and reflexes as those of a photographer seizing
a fleeting instant.