Hannah Norton is a British photographer based in London, UK. She is interested in using the photographic image to talk about issues that aren’t always visible at surface level. Central to her work is the communication of her participants’ emotions and feelings to the viewer. She endeavours to do this by combining the traditional photographic portrait with a collaborative approach, working with the participant to create a unique visual language.
Her series Twenty Seconds To Safety was inspired by several events at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic: the national lockdown, her mother’s mastectomy, and her sister Katie developing OCD in response to fears of transmitting the virus to their mother. Through photographing her sister following this development, which has been the source of much emotional turmoil for the family, Norton seeks to raise awareness around the hidden battle that OCD sufferers continually experience and to challenge common misconceptions about the condition. “Mental [illness] is at a record high due to the coronavirus pandemic and it is vital conversations [on this topic] continue to be had.”
Twenty Seconds to Safety
