Photographer John Myers' best shot

I met Mr and Mrs Seabourne when I gave a talk at the Stourbridge Photographic Society in 1973. When you walk into a room you just notice certain people, and they agreed to be photographed in their home. Often people cannot disassociate themselves from the business of having their picture taken, and capturing two people is more difficult: they both have to be comfortable in their own bodies, and in relation to each other. But in this shot everything came together.

The Seabournes were part of a series called Middle England, mostly taken between 1973 and 1975, and made up of people I knew or came across in my neighbourhood. The title refers both to the middle class and the town's geographic location. Photography in the 1970s was dominated by people who were interested in the decisive moment, or picturesque photography – Henri Cartier-Bresson or the work of US landscape photographer Minor White. Where I live, in the West Midlands, there is no Yosemite Valley, so I had to come to work with a world that normal people, like me, lived in.         Full Read