Book dummy for Catching the Tide, Scotland's last salmon net fishermen. Design by Doug Cheeseman, words by Fiona Halliday.

Mersey Road was a year-long commission I undertook in 2006 on behalf of the Mersey Basin Campaign to celebrate the organisation's 25th anniversary the following year. The project followed the river's course from high up in the Pennine hills all the way into Liverpool Bay and featured many of the most iconic locations along the way, as well as many unseen, hidden places. The images reproduced here are a larger edit of the final selection, which was published in a book entitled 'Mersey - The River That Changed The Word' (Bluecoat Press, 2007) and accompanying exhibition which was shown at the Albert Dock in Liverpool, Stockport and Shanghai the following year.

'Mauerweg' was a 2009 series, part of the larger and ongoing project 'Berlin - After the Wall (1992-). The route of the Wall, which stood from 1962-1989, has been developed into the 'Mauerweg,' a thoroughfare which traces most of the route of the Wall which encircled the city and divided it into East and West Berlin during the Cold War. In the years following the 1989 civil uprising in the German Democratic.Republic, most of the Wall was removed as part of the reunification strategy which united the pro-Soviet DDR and the Federal Republic of (West) Germany.

In 2011, I was commissioned as part of a cultural exchange between the cities of Liverpool and Kosice in the Slovak Republic to make work about two of the cities' best known industrial settings: their car factories. Whilst I was there, Biela Noc, or White Night, an annual celebration took place in the centre of the city of Kosice, featuring artists from across Europe and the world. The displays are on the theme of illumination and light and in 2011 attracted 30,000 visitors to the city.

A specially-commissioned interactive project which celebrated one hundred years of research and development at Unilever’s Port Sunlight facility. The work is presented in three parts: a display of photographic images, an installation using printed t-shirts and a short film. The exhibition opened at Port Sunlight in December, 2011 and went on to be shown at the Bluecoat, Liverpool in spring 2012. In 2011, I was commissioned by Unilever to commemorate the centenary of the research and development facility at Port Sunlight. This would involve making an intervention into a world that was wholly new to me. As a non-scientist, it would be the people working there who would help shape the project and contribute to my understanding of how the facility works. My initial approach was based on information: asking individual members of staff about the work they carried out, their approach to it and how that work fitted in with the overall aims and objectives of the facility. Through my conversations, I discovered that the scientists, mathematicians, psychologists, researchers and technicians at Port Sunlight used illuminating words to describe to me what they were doing and how. By focusing on these key words, I came to discover that they had double or multiple meanings that allowed some degree of ambiguity and interpretation. But one word stood out for me as non-negotiable: Proof. This is this word that informs, stimulates and defines the work at Port Sunlight. It is the determining motive behind the research and development: the search for proof that a product can perform as predicted and promised. By attributing individual words to the images I made at Unilever, I am placing my own interpretation on what I observed and captured. This has been a subjective exercise, one based on my opinion of what I experienced. It is not definitive and certainly not scientific. Where science discovers and attempts to find proof, art interprets. The use of these words combined with the images asks the viewer to consider what proof is. Is it negotiable? Is it real or imagined? Can we trust it? If the words and images are interchanged, is the principle of proof altered? These are questions that artist, scientist and viewer can ask themselves and find their own collective and individual answers to.

'Work Space' was a series made on a commission between the cities of Liverpool and Kosice, Slovakia in 2011 as both had been European Capitals or Cities of Culture. The project was a collaboration between myself and Slovakian artist Jaris. We spent time in each other's home environment and also at two car components factories owned by Getrag, who sponsored the exchange. The photography took place in their facilities at Halewood and Kechnec during 2011.

The images from my A41 Project exhibition, a collaboration with The Equality trust and supported by Arts Council England, which looked at inequality in society through photographs made along the A41 trunk road from London to Birkenhead in 2012-13. The project was exhibited at key locations along the road, including at the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead and at the Free Space Gallery in London. A newspaper of the project, which also had input from community groups along the road, was published which features an article by Professor Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level, which looks at inequality in our society and upon which the project was based.

The Recession Will Not Be Televised... Porto. Portugal. August 2013. The city slumbers. A long, somnolent sleep during which they celebrate the saints and take a holiday. Beneath the still veneer is hidden a crisis. One that cannot be seen and cannot be heard. The crunching credit fuels a prolonged epoch of austerity across the Old Continent. In Portugal it is called the “invisible recession” or the “indoor recession”. You cannot see it, or hear it, but you can feel it. You know it is there but it does not show itself against Porto’s historic frontages and sloping magnificence. The Douro runs timeless. People carry on. Politicians come and go like the morning mist funnelling up the river and swirling around the bridges. There are ideas and then there is phlegmatic pragmatism. If the revolution starts here, it may start silently. - Colin McPherson, 2013

'A Fine Line' was a project I undertook for a year beginning in March 2013, in which I traveled and photographed the 96-mile border between Scotland and England. The resulting photography was exhibited for the first time at Impressions Gallery, Bradford from July, 2014 as part of the Document Scotland show entitled 'Beyond the Border'. The project looked at the physical border as it runs from west to east, but was also a metaphysical examination of my own identity as an exiled Scot in England. I wanted to make connections back to my country of birth, at the same time documenting places, people and events I encountered over the course of 12 months.

Common Ground, a publication by the Document Scotland collective, produced in 2014. Designed by Yuko Hirono.

The story of my project entitled 'The Fall and Rise of Ravenscraig' started for me on a July day in 1996. It was then that the iconic cooling towers and gas holder of the former steelworks were demolished, in a single act which came to symbolise the end of Scotland's heavy industry. Almost two decades later, I was commissioned to return to the area, and research and deliver a project about the past, present and future of what had been Europe's largest hot strip steel mill. The resulting images show a transitry landscape, still largely undeveloped, which is awaiting the next chapter of its' history to be written. The images were first shown in public at Document Scotland's 'Common Ground' exhibition, at Street Level Photoworks, from July-October, 2014.

'An Independent Eye', a photo book published in 2016. It was published to mark the end of print publishing of the Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers, who I had worked for as a freelance on assignments and commissions from 1995 until 2016. It was self-published the same year in an edition of 250.

'Africa Drive-by' a photo book published in 2017. The images were captured from the back of police motorcades and security vehicles in eight southern African countries in spring and summer, 2017. It was self-published the same year in an edition of 250.

Abstracts of Argentina is a book dummy of images made on a visit to the South American country in spring, 2019.

Cafe Royal Books publication entitled 'Berlin After the Wall 1992-94' by photographer Colin McPherson. Edition of 250, published in 2019 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Memento Mori was a short, self-generated project made in response to personal aspects of in my life. The photos were made in June, 2018 in New Brighton, Wirral.

They might be simple and utilitarian in purpose, but maintenance hole (manhole) and gully covers reveal a rich industrial and social history, one which we simply walk by and largely ignore every day. I started photographing these pieces of street furniture in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic as part of my daily routine of permitted exercise walks near my home in Wirral, north west England. With their distinctive designs, ornate shapes and names embossed on the cast iron covers they offer a glimpse of the past. Many, it seems, were installed even before World War II, at a time when the road network in England was being developed and built. Thousands are still in use today. Wirral Metropolitan Borough has responsibility for around 35,000 active gullies, and historically the covers for these have been supplied by companies from as far away as London and Rotherham. Until local government reorganisation in 1974, the maintenance was divided between the old Cheshire County Council and the four local municipalities which now make up Wirral. It is still not uncommon to find covers with a long-closed foundry name emblazoned on them. In addition, there are around 600 manhole covers in Wirral, almost all round in shape, a design feature which makes them easier to fit and less likely to collapse than square or rectangular versions. Most of these are now in the ownership and care of United Utilities. Because of damage, around three gully grates have to be replaced each month in Wirral by the local council, which does not now have a programme of routine maintenance due to budget constraints. They simply wait until the covers have to be replaced before ordering a new one. One big problem is theft: there are periodic spates of disappearances, often associated with the price of raw materials. To date, however, Wirral has not suffered the fate of one local authority in Scotland where around 50 covers were stolen in what became known in 2004 as the Great Drain Robbery. To replace a humble cover can cost anything from £70-£500, depending on what traffic management measures need to be put in place. I have discovered that I am not alone in my interest in the gullies. There are websites and Twitter accounts dedicated to documenting and commenting on the covers, and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is amongst possibly hundreds of what are termed operculists or gridders. It has been reported that he photographs the covers as a hobby. There are enthusiasts too in many other countries, often in locations where local authorities utilise colourful and decorative designs which add a touch of elegance to the average street scene. In some parts of the world, such as Berkeley, California, manhole covers has been renamed maintenance hole covers to reflect the more gender-neutral times we are living in. It’s just another layer of history to add to the story of these humble objects which I walk past every day. Except now, I make a point of photographing them.

'Adele, Coal Day, 2020' from Colin McPherson's project 'Treasured Island’, an insider’s look at contemporary life on Easdale, the smallest permanently-inhabited Inner Hebridean island, located on Scotland’s west coast which was at one time world famous for its slate mining industry. A selection of the photos was exhibited as part of the Document Scotland exhibition entitled 'A Contested Land' which launched at the Martin Parr Foundation in 2019 before touring venues in England and Scotland. In 2022, the project was shown as part of ‘Reflections on a Changing Country’ at the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin. Photograph © Colin McPherson, 2020 all rights reserved.

A small series of images depicting tributes to Kemal Atatürk in Fethiye, Turkey. Atatürk (c. 1881 - 1938) was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernised Turkey into a secular, industrialising nation.

Berlin: After the Wall is an ongoing project by Scottish-German photographer Colin McPherson started in 1992 which documents the course of the former Wall as the city around it was redeveloped following German reunification. The Berlin Wall, a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) authorities was completed on 13 August 1961, which immediately cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The Wall was opened on 9. November 1989 allowing free movement of people from east to west and subsequently dismantled. Photographs © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.

As the Berlin Wall crumbled under the weight of people power in 1989, a new era began for Germany. Re-unification of the two republics was most evident in the formerly divided city of Berlin, where the 155 kilometre barrier had separated families, friends and neighbours for 28 long years. After the euphoria came reality. The course of the Wall left an ugly scar across urban and rural landscapes. As the years passed, development, regeneration and gentrification began to rub out the traces of what was once present and visible. My family links have taken me back to Berlin repeatedly over the last three decades. In that time, I have tasked myself with documenting the physical changes which have slowly but inexorably brought East and West Berlin together. Now, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, I present images of what came after 1989 and what it looks like today. Berlin: After the Wall (1992- ) is a visual exploration of a changing environment and also a tribute to the power of belonging and togetherness. The photographs were curated and shown by SixBySix, the Merseyside-based collective, in an exhibition at Ropes & Twines in Liverpool in November, 2019 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Prints of any of these photographs are for sale. Please contact me for details.

The Mersey Dips Beginning in 2018, photographer Colin McPherson followed an ever-growing ad hoc community of people who swim in the river Mersey at various locations on the Wirral peninsula. He continued his work until the start of the Pandemic in 2020, at which time he put down his camera and joined his friends as one of the swimmers. Prints from the series are available for purchase from this website. For more information please contact colinmcpherson@mac.com