FOR photographer Tony Crawford, a trip to Brighton has taken on a whole new meaning.

Tony has embarked on a mission to visit every Brighton in the world, and will be displaying pictures of his travels on the Internet.

He will spend the next few years globetrotting and photographing everyday life in Brightons on every continent.

Tony, 35, from Chichester, has just returned from his latest assignment in Brighton Beach, New York.

His next trip is to a native Indian reservation, also called Brighton, in Florida.

Tony's travels will see him take a dip on Brighton beaches 12,000 miles apart in Lancashire and Melbourne.

He will also be visiting Brightons in American states and cities including Ohio, Kentucky and Boston.

Tony said: "I hope to get to all the Brightons everywhere. In a few years I will have enough pictures to put on an exhibition, which I might take all over the world with me if people are interested.

"It is also a great chance to show what a funky, lively and wonderful place our town is."

ibrancy

Tony grew up on Brighton's Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb estates, and was bitten by the travel bug at the age of 18.

He spent years travelling around Europe and Africa before deciding there was nowhere quite like Brighton.

Tony said: "I love coming back, looking at the sea, experiencing the vibrancy and walking on the Downs. This is the most wonderful town in the world."

Last summer was spent filming the mainly ethnic Russian community in New York's Brighton Beach, its boardwalks a far cry from the Palace Pier and Peter Pan's playground.

Tony said: "The whole place is so different to here. Everyone there speaks Russian first and English second. In September temperatures were still up in the 90s, which doesn't happen here very often."

He said: "When I'm away I often wonder why people have named so many places the same.

I suppose people from Brighton must have gone out there and set up communities."

ounterparts

On his epic journey Tony will visit a new Kentucky housing development called Brighton Springs, and an exclusive ski resort nearly 9,000 feet up in the mountains of Utah.

In fact the Americans seem to love English place names so much Tony has given his study the working title The 51st State.

But he said: "None of the other Brightons can be compared to ours. Brighton in Massachusetts, for example, is just a suburb of Boston.

"San Francisco is the only place in the world I think compares, for its vibrancy, culture and people."

As a lover of the whole county, he has also compared other Sussex place names with their Stateside counterparts.

He has photos of the American capital Washington next to some of Washington, West Sussex.

Lewes, Seaford and Arlington are all common place names on the other side of the Atlantic.

Tony's website should start up within the next month.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.