Citizen Division began with a fairly simple idea: to bring my photographs together somewhere that felt entirely their own. I share them on Instagram and on my blog, but I wanted a website devoted solely to images, with enough room to build proper series and let the photographs speak to one another.
Photography has been part of my life for a long time. At ten, I already had a little Canon digital camera on a family trip to Long Beach. I photographed Universal Studios, neon signs, trails of light and the slightly layered images the camera sometimes produced. Later came Montréal with my mum, followed by the tattoo conventions I attended with my dad. I still had no real idea what I would do with all those pictures, but I kept them.
Why create a website just for my photography?
A portfolio gives photographs room to be seen differently. On social media, everything moves quickly and images soon become mixed in with the rest. On Citizen Division, I can choose the order, build a series around a city or a mood, and place a shopfront beside a portrait, a hotel or some small detail spotted in the street.
The name comes from that idea of photographing people and everyday life. I have always liked names that feel collective and open, such as United Colors of Benetton. Citizen stands for people; Division for the different series and the many ways of looking at the same place. I didn’t want to box the website into a single definition of photography.
A photography website built around the images
Being a web designer meant I could create the website exactly as I wanted. The real challenge was knowing when to stop. The art direction needed to have a presence without ever competing with the photographs, so I chose a direct layout, series that are easy to browse and navigation that gives the images plenty of breathing room.
Designing your own website is a funny thing: you can change absolutely everything, which also means you could carry on forever. I had to make choices, accept that every photograph could not be there from day one, and create a foundation I can add to over time. That is part of what I enjoy about the project. Citizen Division is not a fixed portfolio; it will grow with my travels, commissions and whatever catches my eye.
London made me pick up my camera again
London is where I properly began photographing everyday life again. I took pictures of Greg, shopfronts, streets, signs and all those details that can look perfectly ordinary until the light changes them completely. I also bought a little vintage Kodak in Notting Hill and love the way its photographs turn out.
These days I often walk around with my Fujifilm X-M5. It is compact enough to take everywhere, and I absolutely love it. I still photograph without chasing a perfect image: a reflection in a round mirror, a launderette shopfront, a piece of graffiti or a bright colour on a dark street can be more than enough.
Personal work and client projects
Citizen Division brings together my personal series, but photography is also part of my work with Minuit d’Orsay. I photograph restaurants, hotels, food, objects and places to create imagery for their websites. My eye as a web designer inevitably shapes the way I frame a picture: I think about where it will sit on a page, the colours around it and how the whole series will work together.
In turn, photography feeds into my web design work. A website feels far more coherent when its images have been considered alongside the rest of its identity. That is another reason I wanted to show this work separately, in a space where my photographic world is immediately clear.
A portfolio that will keep growing
I wrote more personally about my relationship with photography in my first Citizen Division article. Here, I mainly wanted to explain why I created the website and how I approached its design.
One day, I would love to take the project further with a magazine or an exhibition. For now, I’ll keep adding images to Citizen Division, following the cities, encounters and small details that make me reach for my camera.
How do you prefer to discover a photographer’s work: on Instagram, in a book, or on a website devoted entirely to their images?
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