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I had been looking for a personal project for a while. It was around the same time that my mother came to London to live with us. She doesn’t speak much English, has slight mobility issues and has been relatively housebound. She had become depressed and it was becoming difficult. She was low and I was getting snappy. I had been commissioned to take some portraits so for practice, I started to take pictures of my mother and found that in doing that her mood lifted, and with it mine too. She was becoming interested and animated. I cut her hair and did her make up, and she was alive again. The commissioned portraits worked out well but I had found something deeper. I had found my personal project. Now we go and source outfits for the shoots. We share stories of our lives. We are connected again. Instead of sitting around the house in silence, she has a spring in her step. I also have a spring in mine. We are more alike than we are different. “Are we going out today?” The lift is going to new floors.