Brindey Road, Paddington

Roger Mayne began photographing in 1947 while studying chemistry at Oxford University, moving to London in 1954 to take pictures of its slums and street scenes. Portrait of Southam Street, a heralded body of work spanning 1956–61, vividly captures the gritty working-class street life of a West London district still reeling from World War II, and influenced generations of photographers in Great Britain. Mayne documented several other metropolitan boroughs as well, including the central London neighborhood of Paddington. Some of his most affecting pictures are of children at play, swinging on lampposts and playing football (soccer) in the street. “My reason for photographing the poor streets is that I love them, and the life in them,” he wrote. “The streets have their own kind of beauty.