Chris Harrison didn’t initially have any intention of photographing Brighton.

However, after spending a few years capturing images in the city where he resides, he came to realize that his collection of photos provided an unexpected perspective on the city.

“Sideshow is an ongoing street photography project that I started in October 2016.

I go out into my home city of Brighton, without any expectation of what I might find.

The project was born out of a growing need to do something creative for myself and on my own terms.

I like the idea of the street as a set of ingredients in flux, where the challenge is to make something interesting out of it.

You work with whatever you find and attempt to make something out of nothing.

I didn’t originally see Brighton as ‘the subject’ as it were, there was more of a motivation to find interesting shots that happen to be taken in Brighton.

But as the project’s unfolded, I’m beginning to see that it speaks of Brighton, just maybe not in the way you’d expect.

I want to see Brighton in a new way, a way that’ll help me to never see it the same way again.

There’s another aspect to Sideshow that comes through quite strongly, and that’s ‘low season’.

The part of the year that Brighton takes on a slightly melancholy feel, the way that many bustling seaside towns can feel during the colder winter months.

I really like the low season, it can throw up some really interesting encounters with the light, the spaciousness and the more muted colours.

The shots that are taken in the winter months definitely have a different tone to them – they’ve got a bit more pathos and I find that a really interesting tone to play with.

I’m currently working on a collection of fifty images from this project that I’m going to self-publish by the end of 2023.”