I walk through streets in day, at night, looking for a scene in Brighton. I photograph out and about at any given moment. It’s a way of keeping my eye in and empty days out. An exercise. A compulsion. There are few things I wont turn my camera towards. However, one aspect of street life that I avoid, out of sheer visual saturation, is the homeless community. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, completely void of approval or admiration and a guaranteed image from any amateur street photography competition. I turn away from photographs depicting the destitute for the same reasons that Susan Sontag stopped Regarding the Pain of Others. There is no effect. I’ve felt uncomfortable close to losing my home these last few years though. Two winters of no work with a family to support created a sizeable financial concern in 2012 and 2013. I worried for my kids, worked on my diplomacy skills and got through it with thanks to an understanding landlord and by living in a welfare state. I am lucky. But I feel I have potential that warrants the support, monetary or otherwise. The current government has imposed a number of cuts to our welfare system in the hope of stemming an ever-increasing financial deficit. This shortsighted solution has instead stemmed the UK’s cultural progress, social empathy and economic mobility. I feel we have taken a cerebral step backwards. The individuals that need the most help seem to be suffering the greater pain. With this opinion in mind I started making images for Spikes in the Spring of 2013. I collected flowers and fauna breaking through the pavement in Brighton and crushed them into large format film. After a week I’d shine a little blue light onto them before developing the neg. What was left was a cross between a photogram and an organic stain, curious and a little psychedelic. I didn’t want to create images that prompted pity or shame, or even anger. I wanted to make images that projected the potential that everyone has, regardless of their situation and financial status. The current Government is failing in their duty to protect and encourage their citizens by favoring corporation over community. A longwinded campaign of necessary economic austerity has diminished public compassion and enhanced a growing negative opinion of the welfare state. Simply making things harder for those that need the most help is counterproductive. Fiscally it will dig a deeper hole in the public purse by intensifying the problems surrounding financial hardship. Socially it will further segregate an already disparate population. My images will not instigate social reform or change public opinion in any small way. All I ask is that if you like them put a pound in a coffee cup.
I am a photographer, video producer and artist who was born and raised near Perth in Scotland and is now based in Lewes, South East England. I graduated from Brighton University in 2008 with a BA(Hons) in Photography and continue to create self-initiated projects using a blend of autobiographical and documentary practice.
