“Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather.” So said Tom Wolfe, one of the grand old men of American letters, about New York. Few would disagree with him, but those who dispute the city’s allure might find their preconceptions altered by the extra-legal work of a Sheffield-based personal injury lawyer. That man is Simon Allen, and he is the managing partner of the Sheffield and Wakefield offices of Russell Jones & Walker. He is also a deft and skilled photographer with a specialist interest in the Big Apple.

“I first went to New York in 1995,” says Allen, an urbane man who is a member of both the Society of Labour Lawyers and the American Trial Lawyers Association. “It’s a wonderful city to photograph, not just for the sights and scenes but because people are used to being photographed. Unlike in England, they don’t mind.”

Allen has since revisited the city on photographic odysseys every year, save for 9/11. “I’ll book into say the Mercer Hotel or the Soho Grand for four or five nights and just walk the streets, camera in hand,” he says. “It’s a complete escape and allows me to dedicate time to achieving something with my photography.”

A glance at Allen’s work, either in his firm’s Manchester office (where it hangs in pride of place) or via his website www.simonallenphotos.com, shows that Allen is certainly achieving. His work is pleasingly nuanced and sensitive, though also, particularly in his portrayals of New York graffiti art, not what might be expected of the conventional lawyer. But for Allen, creativity, rather than convention, is key. “It’s hard to stand still in the law, what with constant meetings and commitments. But photography means that I’m being creative. I’ve always been interested in it and it’s a vital part of my life now.”

Even before he had completed his legal studies Allen had become fascinated by photography. “I bought an old Fujica camera when I was 17,” he recalls. “Initially I used it simply for family pictures but I got more serious at university, especially after a trip to Berlin in 1977. I went because David Bowie was playing a gig. It was my first time abroad and I went into East Germany. The experience really opened my mind.” Allen made a subsequent trip to Moscow, where he relished capturing scenes from the Red Square, but admits that his hobby took a back-seat in the early days of his legal career. But then came his transformative visit to New York.

“The people in New York are incredibly friendly, the light is wonderful and there is always a feeling of energy in the city,” says Allen, who cites Wlliam Klein, Henri Cartier Bresson and William Eugene Smith as among his favourite photographers. “I love wandering into Soho and just seeing what’s going on, then heading over to the meat packing district in the East Village and taking some rougher images.”

Allen counts his most memorable picture to date as one of a skater at the Rockefeller Center, and agrees that he would be delighted if his work were one day to be exhibited in New York: “So far I’ve shown in a gallery in Sheffield and some of my images have been used as the firm’s Christmas cards. I plan to try and get the work out there a little more but it’s a competitive market. There are a lot of very good photographers out there.”

Allen has been accompanied for some of his trips to New York by his wife Ros and elder children Seb and Gabi, and says that his youngest child, daughter Susie, 9, will “no doubt get dragged around the city soon”. But whether in company or alone, this is one lawyer whose annual escape from the law is well on its way to yielding a substantial and impressive body of work. Even if a natural sense of modesty means that he’s keeping his feet on the ground.

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