QUARANTUNE

Approach

I'd been a club photographer for about three or four years, learning to read a room, anticipate a moment and earn the trust of crowds, promoters and artists long before I ever picked up a brief. That instinct carried into a collaboration with a student society running nights at an underground venue in Hull, where I documented the energy and intimacy of a scene finding its feet again after lockdown. The work was raw and honest, shot to make you feel the room rather than just see it. One of the people there knew someone producing a book on the resurgence of nightlife and put my name forward to be published. It was a milestone at just 22, and it reflected a deep, ongoing passion for music, photography and the vibrancy of nightlife returning post-COVID.

Outcome

The work spread further than I could have imagined, crossing from web and socials into a proper, printed book that sold out. Seeing my photography held in print alongside artists I admired was a real marker of how far the craft had come, and how much the scene had fought to come back. Cromby, one of the artists I shot during that run, is now a huge name on the circuit, and I genuinely hope we get to collaborate again in the future. The project proved that the right image, made with respect for the people in the room, can travel from a dark Hull venue to a national conversation.