Like many other photographers, Raymond Moore started his artistic career as a painter. He was born in Wallasey, Cheshire, in 1920 and after studying at Wallasey College of Art he won an exhibition scholarship to the Royal College of Art at the age of 27. After graduation, he gradually came to realise that photography offered him a more appropriate medium for his art than painting. In that period between 1950 and 1970 British independent photography was under-nourished and lacking support. Some individuals rose above these constraints and captured the public's attention, but the underlying theme of their work was usually one of photojournalism or documentary in the purest of senses.

This article was first published in the March/April 1981 edition of Creative Camera magazine, a special double issue entitled 'British Photography Now'. Moore was talking to art historian Ian Jeffrey, and the interview took place just prior to the opening of Moore's major retrospective, held at London's Hayward Gallery. This show was only the second exhibition by a living British photographer to be held there. The first had been Bill Brandt in 1970.