Photographers JJ Waller and Martin Parr have collaborated on a world-first project for the 2025 Brighton Festival with an exhibition of super-sized photographs fixed flat to the roofs of bus shelters, titled Beside the Sea. The exhibition can only be viewed from the top deck of a bus. JJ Waller is well known in Sussex for his best-selling photography books depicting ‘beyond-the-postcard’ views of Brighton. Martin Parr has seldom before exhibited in the city. For this exhibition each photographer has selected images from the other’s archive.

We caught up with them to find out more.

ROSA: How did you two get to know one another?

JJ Waller: I noticed Martin was following my lockdown work on Instagram. I was posting pictures of people in Brighton, Firle and St Leonards, seen through the windows of their houses. I bit the bullet and sent him a personal message asking him if he would consider editing the pictures for a book. Fantastically, he agreed. The result was JJ Waller’s Lockdown Portraits of this Time. We got to know each other from there.

Martin Parr: I had spotted JJ’s images on Instagram, and, I thought, ‘hey, here’s someone to watch…’.

ROSA: You are both involved in an exciting project for Brighton Festival, involving buses and bus shelters. Can you describe what we can expect to see, and how it came about?

JJ: I have had this concept on the backburner for years. When I was a kid, I spent hours with my mum on buses, looking out from the top-deck window. It’s a very simple idea: pasting large-scale images flat onto bus shelter roofs. I love the idea of shoppers and commuters engaging with photography in this way.

MP: JJ came up with the concept and I just loved it straight away!

ROSA: Has anything like this been done before?

JJ Waller: Neither of us is aware of anything like this being done before: I’m pretty sure that’s why Martin didn’t hesitate when I presented the idea to him. We’re both excited by the idea of our photographs finding a new audience. The concept is both innovative and playful.

MP: Never had I heard of anything like this, it has to be unique.

ROSA: Martin has described the seaside as a ‘laboratory’ for his ideas. What is it about coastal resorts that make them so photogenic?

JJ: Traditionally it’s an environment where people are comfortable both taking photos and being photographed…

MP: Seaside resorts are bright and cheery, but there is often poverty and shabbiness there too. That contradiction is the key element for me.

ROSA: Which seaside resort has been most fruitful for your work, and which comes a close second?

JJ: Benidorm. My hometown of Brighton would be another choice although recent favourites are Beachy Head and Birling Gap, which on a busy weekend are even more cosmopolitan than Brighton.

MP: I guess doing The Last Resort in New Brighton way back in the 80s produced what still remain my best-known seaside images.

ROSA: You both might be defined as a ‘street photographer’, though I suspect ‘documentary photographer’ might be more apt? How do you define the sort of work you do?

JJ: Maybe observational documentary? Although I predominantly shoot on the streets, I’m not a purist street shooter, I’m just inquisitive. I don’t mind if people are aware of my making pictures or not. I like to interact and chat and talk about what I am doing. I often make repeated visits to the same place over the years and get to know many of the people that are in my photographs. My books have an element of the family photo album, with readers recognising themselves and their neighbours. I’ve been photographing in St Leonards for 15 years, and I have made many friends there. People are used to me wandering around with my camera.

MP: I think of myself as a subjective documentary photographer, trying to make images that tell of my relationship to the world.

ROSA: Some might consider your style of photography to be intrusive or exploitative. Is this a fair charge? How often do you ask permission to take your photos? Do subjects ever object? Has anyone ever taken a picture of you without permission?

JJ: Whether a photo is exploitative or not is an instinctive consideration. It’s rare that I feel uncomfortable about a shot I have taken and I generally delete them if I do.

MP: Shooting the public is a bit exploitative, whatever happens. I shoot what I think is necessary to shoot. If I do portraits I will ask. From time to time someone objects: it’s an occupational hazard.

ROSA: Has digital photography changed the way you work? Do you ever still use film?

JJ: Working digitally is so much more immediate, and film is so very expensive. I rarely use a camera phone but they really are amazing: computers with a lens on the front that seem to be able to see in the dark. I have recently switched to digital medium format: the detail is astonishing.

MP: It has made my life a lot easier, especially shooting at night, when you can alter the exposure to suit the environment.

ROSA: How much work do you do on your images after they have been taken?

JJ: A little cropping maybe and a few adjustments to highlights and shadows. About as much as I would have done in a darkroom, where it would have been called ‘dodging and burning’.

MP: My colleagues in the studio do all the processing, we don’t alter any images beyond adjusting the density and the occasional crop.

ROSA: How important is social media to your work?

JJ: I don’t work very hard at it, but social media is a very important tool towards finding an audience. It is great for interacting with other photographers too. As far as ‘socials’ go, my report would definitely say: ‘Should try harder’.

MP: It’s a great way to communicate to the people who are interested in my work.

ROSA: Do you think the development of AI is a threat to photographers? Or an opportunity? Are you a ‘doomer’ or a ‘zoomer’?

JJ: Definitely an opportunity. At first photographers were very resistant to using colour over black and white, or going digital instead of shooting film. It will be fascinating to follow the ‘zoomer’ journey.

MP: I am not threatened by AI, it can’t really substitute the individual quirks of a photographer.

ROSA: You both spend a lot of time in seaside resorts: when did you last swim in the sea?

JJ: Never! My overall experience with most teachers at school – many of whom had a few years earlier been fighting in a world war – was that they made me feel scared. Sadly, my swimming teacher was no exception.

MP: It must be over 20 years ago. I don’t like swimming.

Beside the Sea runs throughout Brighton Festival, May 3 – 26.