These photographs are something I’ve been taking for a while and have developed into an ongoing project.

They are all images of empty high street shops in Britain from 2020 to the present.

I hold my phone to the glass and take, usually, a single shot and move on. The only considerations are the photograph being at eye-level, small spaces captured vertical, bigger spaces horizontal. I’m taking them from the outside, which seems relevant to the project.

The ever growing emptiness of the high street due to online shopping monopolisation is leaving the consumer with less and less to choose from. I see this as a metaphor for how wealth inequality is shaping our economic landscape. Ultimately this trajectory leads to nothing being on offer for those considered not economically viable.

But what was once a project documenting events on the high street has somehow also become an indicator for how I think about myself and where I am today.

I feel as though I’m on the outside of many things but that’s not necessarily a complaint. Capitalisms inevitable race towards a single winner and my relationship to that race as a consumer revolts me more and more.

Is contentment possible outside of this quid pro quo?

Can it be dismissed?

Is it too late?

I cancel subscriptions, learn to make and do more. I boycott. Amend my goals. My searching is localised.

The title for this collection comes from The Vanities of Life by John Clare.

The poem starts;

What are life’s joys and gains?

What pleasures crowd its ways,

That man should take such pains

To seek them all his days?

Sift this untoward strife

On which thy mind is bent: