This project developed organically from my own observations about the area where I live, in between Brighton’s universities and centre. There’s a high density of student accommodation and bedsits housing a largely transient population, attracting many independent takeaway shops, cafes, convenience stores and barbers. My attraction to the artificial lighting and signage of these shops, as well as my curiosity about their staff and clientele, prompted me to record the evening life of this area, focusing on these establishments and those who frequent them.

I associate the transient nature of the area with a sense of urban isolation and loneliness, and was attracted to scenes that reflected this melancholic feel - lone figures buying takeaways or bored shopkeepers alone in an empty space. I imagined the lives of students away from home and single people in bedsits, unable or unwilling to cook for themselves, being drawn into these shops. 

I felt I was recording the fleeting relationships between shopkeeper and customer, and as observer, was separated from the subjects by the very environments I photographed. I loved the contrast between the shops’ brightly lit interiors and boldly coloured signages, and the cold, dark, often rain-soaked streets outside. There was a sad shift between the shopfronts’ colourful promises and the cheap alcohol and low quality fast food offered within - it seemed ironic that the signs proclaimed 'Welcome' and 'Open'.  

 

The project also felt quite voyeuristic as I was documenting those transient, in-between times where people would perhaps prefer to remain unnoticed. The evening is when the shops’ artificial lighting and signage are at their most garish and gaudy, but it also represents a twilight time between day and night - between the public space of work or college and the private space of home.

All photographs were taken between January and March 2016 in Brighton, UK.