Land of the Morees is Jude Lartey’s reflection on “the timeless connection between humans and the sea”

Moree is a small historic fishing town on the outskirts of Accra in the south of Ghana. As a young child, photographer and filmmaker Jude Lartey built a connection with the place through his visits to Jamestown beach every weekend to buy fresh seafood with his father. These visits, filled with “the sounds of the waves and the lively, close-knit community”, slowly shaped Jude’s love for Moree’s rhythm of life and for all of the town’s colourful nuances and intricacies.

One day in 2022 whilst shooting a story for The Guardian, the image-maker stumbled across ag road sign for Moree on his trip to Cape Coast that read: ‘Welcome to Moree, Ghana’s Historic Fishing Capital. City of Light.’ Jude was fascinated by the unfamiliar title for the small town, one he’d never encountered. He felt a “strong pull” to once again immerse himself into Moree’s culture, and return in the spirit of a childhood weekend trip to document its coastal community.

“I set out to document this special place, not only because of its rich history but also because I believed the world should know about this hidden gem,” the photographer tells us. His approach to framing his images lay somewhere between capturing the candid moments that Moree naturally delivered and carefully crafting intentional portraits that framed its local people. “I wanted to create a world that felt authentic, offering viewers a raw, unfiltered glimpse into their daily lives”, he says. “My goal was to bring the energy of the community to life through images that speak to both the vibrancy and their tradition.”

As Jude came to know the townspeople over the years, the initial divide between photographer and participants all but faded; openness and sense of belonging steered Jude’s image making. Captured in his dynamic snapshots of daily life are the people that warmly welcomed him into their world; children venturing close to the lens with broad grins; fishermen with nets draped over their shoulders in regal-like poses; and a little girl in a colourful floral skirt sitting on a mooring pole, staring out to sea. Jude’s glimpse of life in Moree centres on this sense of connection — it’s an intimate insight from someone caught up in a nostalgic net.

As a self taught image maker born and raised in Accra, Jude’s journey into the world of documentary photography all started with his late grandfather who would “share stories of the countries colonial period” throughout his childhood with the use of “old reference images” and “family photo albums” — an early insight into the power of images “in telling stories and capturing history”, Jude says.

Land of the Morees is one project in an ongoing photographic practice that continues to explore the documentation of personal and cultural history from Ghana and beyond. The series was put on show for the first time in 2024 in Ghana, in a debut solo exhibition for the photographer. Since then he has continued to document the community and build connections with the people of Moree. Jude is also in the process of working on some prints of the series, in the hopes of selling some of his work with proceeds from the project directed back to the people of Moree. Outside of photography, his aim is to support the community in practical ways, “whether that’s through providing resources, assisting with local projects, or simply giving back to the people who have opened their hearts to me”, he says.

Overall, Land of the Morees stands as Jude’s heartfelt tribute to both the steadfastness of the towns people, and coastal communities as a whole. “The series captures the essence of life on the shores of Moree, celebrating the resilience, joy, and unity of its people, while also reflecting on the timeless connection between humans and the sea.”