The Painter on a BOAT: A Portrait of JuaN Gomez in Hackney

Some of the best portraits aren't planned. In fact, most of my work with paying clients is also in the moment and in motion and very little about it is over-planned. I believe portraits need space and spontaneity to emerge as something real. This one started with a walk along the canal near Broadway Market in Hackney, London, and a boat I just couldn't ignore. If you scroll down you will see why.

I was walking past the moorings near Broadway Market when I heard Colombian music drifting out from one of the boats. The boat it was coming from was impossible to miss: hand-painted, covered in colour from bow to stern. Through the window I could see a man working on a canvas.

His name is Juan. He's from Colombia, and the narrowboat is his studio and his canvas all at once. I stopped to talk to him, and what started as a quick hello turned into a proper conversation on the towpath. Before I left, I asked if I could come back the next day to photograph him. He kindly said yes.

I don't normally shoot street photography. Done without care, I find it ethically complicated, and it's not something I engage in a lot. But documenting an artist is different: artists generally want to be seen, and their work wants to be seen too. Juan paints in public, on a boat moored where hundreds of people walk past every day. Photographing him felt like an extension of that, not an intrusion on it.