JUNE 2025 · WATERLINE
Brighton & Hove
Brighton seafront, East Sussex
The West Pier has been rusting in the sea since 1975. Most of what's left now is the ironwork legs — six piles standing in the surf, cut off at varying heights, the superstructure long gone. At a distance it reads as a ruin. Up close the texture of the iron is specific: deep orange-brown, surface pitted and flaking, the structure still upright in the waves by inertia rather than maintenance.
I shot it from the shingle. A lone figure sat facing the piles, their back to the camera, looking out. The grey Channel stretched to the horizon. Overcast sky. Two people stood at the end of a concrete sea-wall jetty nearby, also looking out, also towards nothing in particular. A small group sheltered against the sea wall beside a yellow RNLI board and a red warning flag. Everyone at the waterline was facing the water. Nobody was doing anything except looking.
Everyone at the waterline was facing the water. Nobody was doing anything except looking.
Brighton and Hove — June 2025
Turn away from the pier and the city offers the opposite: dense colour, layered tags, paint. The alleyways behind the seafront are completely covered. Not individual murals but compacted strata — tags over murals over tags, the whole alley surface saturated. A paste-up of skeleton figures in a red circle on a utility cabinet, a pink heart sticker alongside, apparently placed by a different hand. No blank surface within reach.
At the Hove end, a timber groyne stretches into the choppy sea, a seagull mid-flight above it, storm clouds moving in. The cast-iron seafront railings run along the promenade in green, ornate at the top, the shingle and beach visible through the gaps below. Two people photographed each other in front of the striped beach huts in yellow, red-orange and blue. Two children sat on a step in front of Brighton Sailing Club's blue doors, painted with small colourful sailboats.
Yellow and purple graffiti tag on a red brick wall with downpipes and a shuttered window, Brighton back alley
Two people standing at the end of a concrete sea wall jetty looking out toward a grey Channel horizon, Brighton
Small group huddled against a sea wall on Brighton's shingle beach, yellow RNLI board and red warning flag alongside
Lone figure sitting on Brighton's shingle beach facing the rusting skeletal remains of the West Pier standing in the sea
Six rusted iron piles of the West Pier standing in the breaking surf, Brighton shingle beach in the foreground
Row of rusted West Pier iron piles stretching into the sea under a grey overcast sky, Brighton shingle beach
Brighton alleyway with shopfronts completely covered in dense colourful graffiti tags and street art
Street art paste-up of skeleton figures in a red circle on a utility cabinet, pink heart sticker alongside, Brighton back alley
Hove beach with a timber groyne extending into the choppy sea, seagull in flight, dark storm clouds above
Close-up of a large yellow and blue graffiti tag on a red brick wall with a shuttered window above, Brighton
Two children sitting on a step in front of Brighton Sailing Club's blue doors painted with colourful sailboats, cobbled quay
Green cast iron seafront railing receding along Brighton's promenade, empty bench and shingle beach visible below
Two people photographing each other beside colourful striped beach huts in yellow, red-orange and blue, Hove
Close-up of ornate green cast iron seafront railings, RNLI kayak and red-yellow flag on the shingle, West Pier behind, Brighton
Wide view of the rusted skeletal remains of Brighton's West Pier standing alone in a calm grey sea under overcast skies