‘I might have been told off if I had pulled out a proper camera’: Johny Pitts’ best phone picture

He was after big architectural ideas, when three men and three pigeons caught this photographer's eye ...

Britain looks most like itself on an overcast day," Sheffield-born photographer Johny Pitts says. He shot these three men - and three pigeons - outside partly renovated flats on London's Jamaica Road in Bermondsey. At the time, he was constantly on the lookout for big architectural ideas from the postwar period".

I was using my phone as a sketchbook to record what I found," says Pitts, whose work can be seen at the Photographers' Gallery in London until 24 September. You'd be surprised how quickly things disappear. Many photographers think capturing a decisive moment is about people, but a lot of the time it's the street furniture and buildings that can suddenly change and alter the atmosphere that attracted you in the first place."