Newhaven Open: Bertie Taylor

Bertie Taylor is a photographer, musician and filmmaker based in Lewes, East Sussex. Working across analogue and digital photography, his practice moves between fashion, documentary and personal projects, with a particular interest in finding beauty and intrigue in the mundane and unexpected.

Taylor has developed an ongoing relationship with Newhaven and its surrounding areas, inspired in part by his family connection to the town. His photographic work often explores overlooked environments and unlikely subjects, from scrapyards and rubbish dumps to industrial spaces and the edges of the urban landscape. Alongside this, he creates cinematic fashion imagery, working with models and shooting predominantly on analogue film.

Taylor describes himself as something of a technophobe and takes a deliberately hands-on approach to photography, avoiding artificial digital manipulation in favour of working with light, shadow and texture in-camera. He is interested in how these elements can transform ordinary situations into something visually unfamiliar or unexpected.

His work has been featured by the BBC, Wired and LensCulture, as well as in international magazines and publications. His photographs have also been brought together in his photobook In Between Worlds. His engagement with the local creative community includes giving a photography talk as part of the Supergraphics Festival at The Sidings in Newhaven, where he discussed his approach to finding beauty in overlooked places.

Alongside his photographic work, Taylor makes short films and music, and continues to develop documentary projects centred on personal stories and lived experience.

Instagram @bertietaylor