The Old Ocean’s Bauble: Mark Power in Brighton

This summer, Mark Power was given carte blanche to dive into the Magnum unseen color archives of the United Kingdom, curating a selection of images from her Magnum peers, and shooting a new body of work in response. 

While browsing the archives, Power stumbled across a series of images depicting Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, but not much more. In response, he decided to turn his lens away from his travels and back towards the city has become his home. “An Old Ocean’s Bauble,” shot with a FUJIFILM GFX SII, sees Power fill the gaps left behind by his Magnum colleagues.

Mark Power: I moved to Brighton, on England’s south coast, in 1978. For a 19-year-old, away from home for the first time, about to go to art school and to be surrounded by like-minded people, it was thrilling. I couldn’t have been happier.

47 years have now passed, and I’m still there. That original euphoria might have faded, but I chose to stay because of Brighton’s willingness to allow its residents (and its visitors) to be who they want to be, without judgment.

Brighton has several other nicknames, including “London-by-the-Sea,” “The Queen of Watering Places,” and my personal favourite, “The Old Ocean’s Bauble.”

While searching through Magnum’s sizeable archive of ‘unseen’ images from the UK, I came across a number of pictures of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion (the city’s most iconic building) taken by three different photographers. I found another image of children riding a model train, but that was it. There were no more pictures of my city. I was disappointed, but knew I’d found my theme.

It’s not easy to photograph the place where you live. Its familiarity might not exactly breed contempt, but the history of photography is closely associated with a fascination for “the other.” We prefer to travel elsewhere, to explore new places, walk in unfamiliar landscapes and meet different people. I’m as guilty of that as anyone.

And yet, at the end of each year, I resolve to photograph my city properly. I have good intentions, but I rarely wander through Brighton with the sole aim of making pictures. So for this commission, inspired by the disappointment of my colleague’s efforts, I began a series of long walks through its streets.

Naturally, I chose to visit parts of the city where I thought I’d find the pictures I was looking for. But by turning a corner here, taking an alleyway there, I discovered locations I’d never been before. It felt, almost, as if I’d travelled to a different place after all. Slowly, I began to make pictures that were closer to my ‘truth’ of what Brighton is than any picture of the Royal Pavilion ever could.

I made these photographs in July, at the peak of the tourist season, but stayed away from the seafront crowds. I searched instead for the unspectacular and the everyday in quiet and seemingly insignificant corners. Meanwhile, from the archive I selected pictures which appeared to take a similar approach. In them you’ll find little in the way of drama. These are moments between moments (most of life is exactly this) and are, instead, gentle reflections on place.

I enjoyed using the FUJIFILM GFX SII because I could handhold it – a completely different experience from my usual large format, tripod-bound equipment. I found myself looking at the world differently, more at tiny details than the sweeping vistas I’m perhaps known for. The camera is light and seemed to encourage me to roam freely, and I walked for miles without exhaustion. It allowed me to reconnect with Brighton in a way that surprised me, and I fell in love with my city all over again.

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