David George | Imperfect

Gravures

Photographs

David George: I Make Work Because I’m Curious

David George: Exhibitions and Publications

Raised in Middlesbrough, David George has spent 45 years working as a freelance photographer, known especially for available-light practice and images made through slow looking, walking and return visits. His photographs trace the social and political narratives written into built and post-industrial environments - places where economic pressure reshapes land, work and memory.

In 2009 he co-founded Uncertain States, a photography project and broadsheet publication, and he is a member of the Temporal School of Experimental Geography. He holds an MA (Distinction) and a BA (Hons) in Photography, and teaches analogue, alternative-process and long-exposure photography at London Metropolitan University.

His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the UK and internationally, and published in titles including London Nights and Hackney by Night. He lives and works in East London.

David George’s Imperfect is a project one can feel as well as see. The purposefulness and observational intensity of the walks, the studied care for processes, analogue or digital, in field or in studio seep into the work. While the images often focus on the scars and relics of a specific post-industrial era and territory, there is a universal melancholy to their simultaneous ‘then and now-ness’. To steal from Tarkovsky, of whom these photographs and photogravures are at times reminiscent, here is an artist ‘sculpting in time’.
Michael Upton, Head of Teaching and Learning Development, London Metropolitan University

David George’s landscape photography is an exploration of place, time, and memory, a sustained eight-year journey along three rivers — The Tees, The Tyne, and The Wear — and the rugged coastline from Hartlepool to Berwick. His work is both documentary and poetic, capturing a landscape shaped by industry, nature and human presence and absence. Through this prolonged engagement, David George exposes the subtle transformations that occur over the years, revealing the traces of history embedded within land and river.

The night photographs are special. David George uses the nocturnal landscape as a stage for quiet contemplation, where artificial and moonlight merge to create a sense of heightened stillness. His long exposures soften the boundaries between reality and memory, transforming familiar environments into mysterious, liminal spaces. These images evoke not only the geography of the North-East but also its history — haunted by the remnants of industrial pasts and illuminated by moments of unexpected beauty.

Complementing the photographs are George’s photogravures, which add a tactile, almost archival quality to his visual narrative. The delicate tonal range achievable through the photogravure process reveals aspects of drawing, making you feel a memory - the material presence is almost painterly. Together, the series forms a meditation on endurance, transience and belonging. In walking these waterways and coastlines, David George has captured more than landscapes: he has traced the enduring pulse of place and the quiet persistence of memory within.
Zelda Cheatle FHRPS, International Photography Curator

David George chases memories of the wild and the wonderful as he journeys through the familiar but evolving landscapes of his childhood in the North-East of England. Both his explorations and photographic approach reflect the imperfect nature of memory and the jeopardy of existence: sublime colour images express nostalgia for lost industries abandoned like the carcasses of giant beasts in an untamed land, while ethereal photogravures sketch the edges of memory, exposing a deep-rooted emotional attachment to place. These are works of love and loss.
Susan Andrews, Emeritus Reader in Photography, London Metropolitan University

Pages: 284
Illustrations: 86 colour and 97 monochrome images
Size: 230 x 170 mm 
Date: 2026
Editions: £35 [paperback] | £25 [eBook]
ISBN: 978-1-912528-65-3 [paperback]