In my dreams I’m dirty, broke, beautiful and free

I was broke, burnt out, and drifting through Camden like a bad dream with a camera.
A man without a plan, just the itch.

Then I spotted them.

A handful of tattooed punks staggered out of a run down off-licence, eyes blazing, limbs twitching, drinking straight from large Scrumpy Jack’s cider bottles and howling through Camden like stray dogs on speed.

I wasn’t looking for trouble. I was just out there chasing photographs and the ghosts of Thatcher’s Britain. But trouble, as always, found me.

One minute I was photographing street decay then I’d snagged an invite to a birthday party and following the punks as they led me down a series of alley’s, through a padlocked side door, past a rusting shopping trolley full of junk and what might’ve been a dead rat in a Sex Pistols T-shirt.

Inside the squat was beautiful chaos: graffiti on the walls, broken couches, broken people, music screaming from a blown-out speaker like the ghost of punk rock choking on its own spit.

I’d barely made it through the first room wide-eyed, camera in hand, sweat on my spine, when I knew - This wasn’t just a party. This was a tribe on the fringe, and I had to document it. Every scar, every scream, every broken tooth. This was the heart of a dying empire, the last stand of the freaks.

I’d found them - the ghosts of London’s cracked underbelly, half-alive and unashamed. They were beautiful, awful, broken, and I loved them instantly. I told them I wanted to take photographs. No. That I needed to! That there was something sacred here, in the mess. They laughed like I was trying to sell them life insurance.

But, Camden doesn’t give out free passes. “If you wanna take pictures,” one of them said, “you gotta get permission from Big Dave.”

Nothing’s free in the kingdom of freaks. They told me straight - no photo’s unless every single degenerate, dropout, and acid-fried squatter gave the green light. Democracy at the edge of madness.

I was optimistic.

My new friends didn’t share my optimism.

Big Dave was built like a brick shithouse and used his size and propensity for extreme violence to bully and intimidate everyone that lived in the squat. He hadn’t slept in four days and was riding a chemical cocktail of ketamine, speed, and untreated childhood trauma. With his drug fuelled paranoia at peak levels, he bluntly and belligerently refused any means of photography and then began to accuse me of being an undercover police officer.

I laughed his accusation off.

Posturing and posing in front of the squat crew, he was insisting I prove that I wasn’t wearing a wire.

“A wire? What the fuck? Of course I'm not,” I stated in mild disbelief.

“Prove it,” he snarled.

“How do you want me to prove that?”

He leaned in. “Get naked.”

The whole room paused. Even the dog quit scratching.

Immediately I sensed my opportunity.

Looking him straight in his bulging, bloodshot eyes I said to him, “Big Dave, you seem like a man of your word, so… I’ll get naked right now. In front of all of you… If, you let me take all the photos that I want for the next three weeks!”

There was a flicker in his face - something between amusement and arousal. His hostile sneer giving way to an awkward, mischievous grin.

His eyes twitched. The grin cracked wider. “It’s a Deal.”

And this, is how I found myself standing under the dim strobe of a flickering light, stark naked in front of 25 punks and a three-legged dog amongst collapsed sofas and piles of empty cider bottles in a old, derelict industrial building in the ass-end of Kilburn.

That act of raw, unfiltered vulnerability bought me three weeks.

Three weeks turned into months.

Months turned into years.

I ended up living alongside them.

Dumpster diving, sleeping on soiled mattresses, dodging rats, bailiffs and heartbreak.

I buried friends.

I was sexually assaulted.

I watched the world burn down and photographed the ashes.

Some people look for permission.

Others earn it.

Me?

I fucking stripped for it!

Artistic portrait of Zombie Punk Anderson Garcia Rodrigues.
English Flag and Union Jack painted on punk boots.
Topless female cage dancer dancing at Slimelight, London.
Portrait of female British punk Kira Alice.
Man sits laughing with two huge dirty feet over his shoulders.
The messy inside of a squatted building in Camden Town, London.
Portrait of male British punk Victor.
A reveller with nose scarification at Slimelight in London poses for the camera on the dance floor.
Reveller dancing with lights on the background at Slimelight, London.
Portrait of tattooed male British punk Krick.
Portrait of female British punk Amber.
Artistic portrait of Zombie Punk Anderson Garcia Rodrigues.
The back of a punks jacket decorated with angry, young and poor drawn on it.
Portrait of a male British punk with a black eye.
Invalide gentleman attacks the camera with his walking frame.
American bulldog bites a skaters skateboard as the skateboarder tries to take back his skateboard.
Punk lifts up a juggalo onto his shoulders at Camden Lock in Camden Town, London.
Punks fighting in the lounge room of a squat.
British punk plays with a dog inside a squat in Camden Town, London.
Portrait of Face tattooed male Irish punk Liam.
Portrait of female British punk Iska.
Portrait of Zombie Punk, Anderson Garcia Rodrigues wearing a skirt in the London Underground, England.
Portrait of an English gentleman, wearing a vest and holding a pipe in his mouth while standing in front a a backdrop of wallpaper in a pub.
Portrait of burlesque dancer Marie Devilreux leaning against a wall backstage at Slimelight, London.
Drug paraphernalia, including a bobblehead toy of the Queen in a squat in Camden Town, London.
Punks dancing in a squat in Camden Town, London.
Punk Johnny climbing on a punching bag and playing with a large black dog inside a squat in Camden Town, London.
Three squatters with face masks of the royal family pose suggestively for a photo in a squat in Camden Town, London.
Zombie Punk, Anderson Garcia Rodrigues, fighting with his partner Joshua in Camden Town, London.
A punk couple kiss on a chair while a squatter passes out in the forground inside a squat in Camden Town, London.
Portrait of male British punk Darius.
Gentleman wearing a neck brace, smoking a cigarette and holding a bouquet of flowers waits for his date do arrive out the front of a run-down shopfront.
Punks begging for drinking money on the Camden Lock Bridge in Camden Town, London.
Skinhead pacifying another skinhead who is trying to start a fight at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, England.
Zombie Punk, Anderson Garcia Rodrigues, posing for tourists on the Camden Lock Bridge in Camden Town, London.
Passed out punk slumped over the Camden Lock Bridge in Camden Town, London while tourist pass.
Sad punk sitting on a chair in his kitchen receives bad news on his mobile phone in Camden Town, London.
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