Portraits of The North

You didn’t come this far to stop

Portraits of the North is a long-form street portraiture project that explores the people and personalities of post-industrial Britain — captured across the towns, cities, and high streets north of the North–South divide. Set against the backdrop of economic stagnation, social fragmentation, and cultural resilience, this work attempts to trace how identity is carried, performed, and photographed in public space.

The project is built on a foundation of voluntary participation, brief conversation, and informed consent — positioning each subject not as an object to be captured, but as a collaborator in a shared act of representation. The encounter itself becomes part of the portrait. This aligns with Ariella Azoulay’s concept of the civil contract of photography, in which photography is not only a visual product, but an ongoing relationship of rights, ethics, and mutual recognition between photographer, subject, and viewer. (Azoulay, 2014)

The methodology also draws from the participatory ethics explored by photographers like Anthony Luvera, who argues for a more inclusive and democratic photographic practice — one that sees the person in front of the lens as a co-author of their own image, however brief the encounter. (Luvera, 2019)

These portraits are made slowly, on the street, in available light, with no agenda but to listen, observe, and ask for a photograph. The project sits within the tradition of British social portraiture, echoing the quiet dignity of work by Daniel Meadows, Tish Murtha, and Vanley Burke, while navigating the complex visual politics of representation in today’s Britain.

Portraits of the North is ultimately a record of presence — fleeting, fragile, but enduring in print. It is an invitation to look again at who we pass by.

Peterborough, 2021.

Lincoln, 2023.

Leicester, 2021.