Peer to Pier

When down on Brighton seafront at the end of October, I happened upon Tides, one of the exhibitions in Brighton Photo Fringe 2016, which took place 1-30th October.
Photo Fringe is a free, open-access festival of new photography that includes things like talks and workshops alongside its exhibitions.
I actually didn't realise that Photo Fringe was on, else I might have made the effort to go around more of the exhibitions. As it stood, I found this one by chance, but had limited time in the city before having to catch a bus elsewhere!

Tides was an exhibition of photography by The Peer to Pier Photography Group, a group of six photographers who collaborated to capture the story of the stretch of beach where the exhibition was held.

The photographs were displayed on chunky columns, the bases of which were those cages of rocks used as sea defences and retaining walls (I don't know the real name for them!) and the top part being of equal dimension but with wood inside the cage to act as a background for the photos. It was great that the method of display matched both the topic and the location!

I liked the fact that the six photographers produced such different work. Each had their own distinctive style, but by working with the same subject matter and theme, the group created a really cohesive exhibition that fulfilled their aim of telling the story of this part of the beach.

I particularly liked Audrey Marshall's moody, off-season black and white shots (as seen above, on the left) and by contrast, Colin Miller's brightly-coloured street photography images (above centre). Colleen Slater's macro images, arranged in sets of eight, were also interesting! Together with David Wilsdon (portraits of the seafront's workers), Leon Bellis (documentary images of work on the seafront development project) and Steve Boyle (silhouette-like portraits), these photographers made a really great exhibition--I wish I'd had more time to look at it!