Unfamiliar Journeys

In Unfamiliar Journeys, photographer Alan McKernan takes us on an unconventional excursion through his home town, the ever-changing city of Liverpool. McKernan has spent the past ten years documenting the city's evolution, and these photographs reflect both the grandeur and decay of this modern urban landscape. As well as Liverpool's architectural landmarks, Unfamiliar Journeys captures deserted warehouses, boarded-up butchers' shops, the cathedral glimpsed between shabby terraces. Signs of Liverpool's recent economic boom - billboards, towering high-rises, skeletal construction cranes - also feature. There is something off-kilter about these photographs, and it takes a moment to realize that there are no people in McKernan's vision of the city. The unusual viewpoints and stark pattern of cast shadows caught on black and white silver-based film enhances this feeling of eerie enchantment. McKernan is a master at making the familiar feel distant, even out-of-time. An unique portrait of Liverpool, Unfamiliar Journeys is also a haunting personal vision of what city life may become.