Reflections on my award-winning photo series.

A little over six months ago, I decided to start taking photography a bit more seriously. I was tired of the perpetual creative stuckness I dwelled in. Always waiting for the right moment to start. Eagerly anticipating the knock at my door to tell me the time is now, you’re ready (you’ll be shocked to discover, it never came!). I want to make films. That’s always been my dream. I’ve made indents here and there in achieving that goal, but the impatient part of me needed something I could make now. To scratch the itch which at this point had engulfed me in a feverish embrace. Photography seemed like the answer. Something which would sharpen my cinematic eye and storytelling skills, get me out of my head and into the world with other people (a welcome move after many years of debilitating mental illness and isolation).

I spent a lot of time building mood boards, researching my favourite photographers and outlining the type of stories I wanted to tell and thinking about the people I wanted to work with. One thing I knew for certain was that at some point, I simply had to photograph Madi. I met Madi years ago, when I was helping out at a Saturday film club ran by a local charity, Clapperboard UK, as a teenager. Her audacious aura is palpable. She is who she is and doesn’t care for anyone’s approval. There’s a quiet angst in her spirit. Something in her eyes that I knew would be magnetic on camera.

My friend Belle sent me a post on Instagram about the Liverpool City Region Photo Awards ran by Open Eye Gallery. They were looking for local photographers to submit a photo series under one of seven cateogries. I scrolled down and saw the “Shared Space(s)” category. My head started buzzing with ideas. I messaged Madi straight away.

A few weeks later, I was in Madi’s house, getting ready for a day out with her and her best friend, Renée. My vision was to capture the gentle back-and-forth between their friendship and the environments which they moved through, from the intimacy of Madi’s bedroom to the energy of the city.

When I was doing research before the shoot, I read an article on what inspired Adrienne Salinger to create her cult portrait series of teenagers in their rooms in the 90s. She said: “It’s the last time in your life that everything you own will be in one room”. That quote struck me. It’s something which 30 years on, just doesn’t resonate anymore. Today, many young people live with their parents well into their twenties and thirties (myself and Madi included). Not only that, many of us think little about sharing snippets of our rooms with strangers online. What happens to privacy and experimentation in spaces that are no longer truly our own or no longer offline?

To me, bedrooms and close friendships can both act as protective containers. They’re places where you can unmask and be the rawest version of yourself. But whilst bedrooms are fixed in place, friendships move through the world with us.

After getting ready, we headed into town and they took me round some of their favourite spots, each place holding a piece of their shared history. As I spent more time with the pair, I got a sense of how their relationship offered both of them safety and freedom.

I’m proud of how the photos turned out. I think they have a softness and nostalgia to them. The series is about youth and the prolonged period of self-making that stretches into early adulthood. It explores that feeling of becoming, of friendship as both mirror and shield, and of spaces, digital or physical, that shape who we are.

See Held, along with the other LCRPA finalists, at Open Eye Gallery until 11th January 2026.

Held: On Becoming, Friendship, and the Spaces That Shape Us

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