I've lived in South London all my life. Perhaps I've stayed put because of the amount of green space there – apparently, parks cover 34% of the South London area. Peckham Rye is one of these and is open common ground.

It is said that William Blake claimed to have had various visions of the Rye in the 18th Century, the first one of "a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars." I can't claim to have seen anything like that, but I have always been attracted to this one tree standing alone in the middle of the Rye—it's a London Plane tree. So, a few years ago, I decided to photograph it once a month for a year.

I chose 2 different locations (either side of the tree) and carefully noted down how many paces to the left or right I was of a bench or a bin, how high my tripod was and what camera settings I used.

My aim was to be up and in situ at first light to ensure no one got in the shot. However, this didn't prove possible, so I ended up with the first location deliberately having someone in the image (cyclist, dog walker, jogger) while the second location was free of human life. It's from this location that this image was taken in March of that year.