Hannah
From the beginning of my practice, I have been drawn to photographing the thoughts, feelings and quiet internal dialogue that shape our everyday lives. Rather than simply describing the external world, I have always been interested in the emotional life that exists beneath the surface.

Hannah was made over a two month period through regular four hour sessions in a single apartment in East London. Restricting the work to one room was a deliberate creative challenge. Rather than relying on different locations, I wanted to discover how much emotional depth could emerge from one familiar space.

Although I initially hoped these moments would simply unfold, I soon realised the work demanded a different approach. Rather than waiting for photographs to happen, I began working in a way that was closer to filmmaking than traditional documentary photography. Each image began with an idea rather than a pose. Together, Hannah and I developed simple sequences of everyday actions, getting out of bed, getting dressed, pausing at the mirror, walking to the window, reading a message, which we repeated over and over again until they no longer felt performed. Like an actor becoming immersed in a role, repetition allowed self consciousness to fall away, creating photographs that feel less like staged moments than fragments lifted from an unwritten film.

I carefully mapped the movement of light through the apartment, returning at different times of day to create the illusion that I had been living alongside Hannah, quietly observing the passing of days. I wanted the photographs to feel like moments when there wasn't a photographer present, or, if there was, someone so familiar that their presence no longer altered the atmosphere of the room.

I'm interested in creating photographs that are carefully constructed, yet feel completely lived. Hannah explores the space between documentary and fiction, where directed moments become emotionally truthful and the quiet rituals of everyday life reveal something of the inner world we all carry with us.