When The Fun Fizzles is a culminationary documentary approach that includes my own photography and abstracts from historic postcards. My work focuses around Barry Island and how once you peel back the surface layer of seaside romanticism and charm, we are greeted with its unsettling darker side at times imbued with an oppressive intimacy. The imagery takes you on a personal and social journey of my personal feelings.

The seaside is a quintessential British place to go, and growing up as a young child, like many other families, my parents would gravitate to the seaside to make memories and relax by the sea. Seaside locations such as Barry Island pepper the British coastline and these small seaside towns have always been a metaphor for the state of the nation. We hold a certain romantic view of the seaside that’s historically been the place to retire for many on those long summer days and is a setting for a slice of national life and identity but seaside towns are changing and growing old. My redundant memories of Barry Island as a child were always of a busy, sometimes loud and vibrant location on the day trips my family made there when I was a young boy.

Nostalgia cements lifelong feelings, and as a child my eyes only saw the world with rose tinted vision. Looking back to those childhood family memories I’m filled with a tenderness and longing of those magnificent day trips where, like many children, all I saw were bright lights, loud arcades and the aroma of chips, candyfloss and the scent of the sea air that would awaken my senses. At times the promise of fun there was fulfilled, but looking back analytically, as an adult, it was denied. The grandeur of Barry Island has faded. Eyes now opened, I see what’s really there.

Technical Specification

52 pages in total (42 pages of imagery)

Softback Book

Portrait orientation

Book Size: 210mm x 240mm

Internal pages: 170gsm silk paper

Perfect bound

Cover: Soft touch lamination with blue foil