Chances are that when you think of a vicar, your mind leaps straight to a peaceful village in the Home Counties, and possibly to a neat table laid out with biscuits in the church hall.
Photographer Jim Grover captures a rather different world in his series Of Things Not Seen: A Year in the Life of a London Priest, now on display at the Oxo Tower.
He followed his own local vicar Kit Gunasekera round his south London parish for a year, observing an oft-overlooked aspect of our city. It's a frequently prosaic story, encompassing bus stops and care homes, food banks and community groups.
Grover shot the series on his Leica Rangefinder in black and white, a nod to the pioneering photo-essay Life of a Country Doctor by Eugene Smith (1948). His portrait of Gunasekera visiting a bed-bound parishioner recently won a prize chaired by titan of photojournalism Don McCullin — recommendation enough for us.
Of Things Not Seen: A Year in the Life of a London Priest is at gallery@oxo until 20 March 2016. Admission is free.
