‘It looked like a stage set’: Gideon Mendel’s best phone shot

A lockdown bike ride through central London with his son led the photographer to a moment of serene, sunny solitude

Celebrating his 19th birthday with a six-hour bike ride through London's deserted streets was not the plan when photographer Gideon Mendel's son, Jonah, began university.

He started the autumn before the first Covid lockdown and was flourishing and enjoying his social life," Mendel says. When lockdown was announced, he came home very abruptly and quite bewildered."