These images are made through a hybrid analogue and digital process. The original photographs were turned into paper negatives, digitally printed, and then contact printed by hand using lith developer. This process creates an unpredictable, atmospheric image in which detail, grain, staining and tonal shift become part of the final work.
Rather than producing a clean photographic record, the paper negative and lith development introduce softness, texture and imperfection. The image appears to emerge from the surface rather than sit on it. Edges darken, highlights bloom, shadows become dense and unstable, and the familiar architecture of Portsmouth is transformed into something more fragile and dreamlike.
The use of lith developer gives the work its distinctive ethereal quality. The process exaggerates contrast in some areas while allowing others to dissolve into mist, creating images that feel aged, weathered and half remembered. As a series, the photographs suggest a coastal city shaped by sea air, distance, erosion and memory.
Series description
Shot in Portsmouth by the sea, this series explores the city as a place of edges: between land and water, permanence and disappearance, record and dream. Familiar coastal structures, seafront buildings, monuments, beach huts and harbour vessels are reimagined through paper negatives and lith printing, giving them the quality of found objects or unearthed fragments.
The images resist sharp documentary certainty. Instead, Portsmouth appears as a remembered coastline, a city seen through salt, weather and time. The sea is present even when it is not visible, in the faded surfaces, the bleached tones and the sense that every structure is temporary when placed against water and sky.Maybe a sense of fun is essential in photography – not necesarily in the faces of the subject/s or the landscape but in the composition and viewpoint… not always taking the obvious shot, brings a touch of the unique
Effective portrait photography is created through the connection between the photographer and the subject. A portrait should convey the subject’s character: its individuality, strength, weakness or even vulnerability. Often this connection is made through the eyes or gaze, but a portrait can be equally effective with little or no eye contact. It should evoke curiosity from the viewer, teasing out queries, questions and conjecture about the subject.
