Faces of Brighton Exhibition
Everyone always says “only in Brighton” when they see something particularly unusual about town so I decided to do a project that looked at they type of people who live in Brighton and help make it the unique place it is. I didn’t just look out the crazy and quirky characters but tried to get a spectrum of Brighton folk.
Finding the people was much, much harder than I imagined it would be and the whole project took way longer than I expected. The wall at Brighton station where they were exhibited was huge but that enabled me to keep adding to the portraits if new people, who I had been unable to track down originally, got in contact.
I photographed a drag queen, the only Green MP, DJ Fatboy Slim, a local homeless man, an artist, a seaswimmer, a mermaid, a leather craftsman, and so so many more. I LOVED it.
I had not put on an exhibition since my graduation show and had no idea just how expensive it would end up being. But I found an amazing printer, SubwayEPS, in Worthing and also a great sponsor with Leaders Estate Agents without whom I could not have put this on.
A lot of unexpected media attention arrived after the train station received a complaint about the portrait of the naked bike ride organiser. I totally understood why they had to take ask me to take the picture down and I did so immediately. But the local press heard about it and Juice Fm (now CapitalFM) ended up starting a campaign to find a new home for the picture which eventually ended up in a quirky local cafe - they even did a ‘grand’ unveiling live on air with myself and the kids being interviewed at the cafe….
