How long have you been shooting for? Tell me about how it all began.

I have been shooting since I was a kid. My dad was a photographer too and I used to process his films for him early on; it was always fun for me, ironically it is somewhat more annoying/stressful now my wage depends on it.

Do you think that growing up in Norfolk has influenced your style?

I know Norfolk has made me the person I am, but I think things really shifted for me when I fell out of love with London. I was living in New Cross – a dank, miserable place with a boy who also came from the countryside, and every day we would talk about what life was like before London. It was then that I craved the natural beauty I could not find in London. London has a profound beauty but it isn’t natural.

You experiment a lot with colour. Why do you think that this is important?

The more I work in colour, the more I realise that my colouring is a work of autonomy. Free association; it is more or less a stream of my consciousness.

There are a lot of photographers doing similar shoots at the moment. What separates you from them?

Nothing is different other than the fact that I am my own person, with my own experiences and my own tastes. Other photographs are not my concern, they are their own concern.

Which was your favourite shoot?

This one, because I used the flowers I salvaged from my mother’s funeral for it.

Was it hard selecting which shoots to put in your book, Aberrant Necropolis, or did you always have in mind which ones you were going to use? Also, what’s the idea behind the title?

The images and order were selected at random by a puzzle we made that is incorporated in the book, and leads to a door on my website… this one in fact… Aberrant, as in ‘chromatic aberration’ caused by a lens in a camera, and the Necropolis is my world after my mother died. My particular necropolis is a city of dead people.

You recently moved from London to the Staffordshire countryside. What was the main reasoning behind this?

I was numb, like I couldn’t feel my entire mind. It was like a phantom limb only I knew it was still there somewhere. I am slowly getting the sensation back. I am a solitary creature. I most certainly wasn’t cut out for the life that was foisted upon me there.

Tell me about some exciting shoots that you’ve got coming up in 2012.

In terms of personal work, I have just completed a shoot which pays homage to the women of the match strikes in London of 1888. This is part of a continuing project to make reconstructions of historic events that stir me emotionally. I will show it very soon so please stay tuned. As for fashion, I will be working with my friends; stylist Pandora Lennard and Designer Sorcha O’Raghallaigh on a feature of Sorcha’s work.

Words: Katie Wilkinson

Ellen Rogers

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So you’re from Liverpool, how did you end up living in London?

I came down here to study. I’d always wanted to be in London. I went to Middlesex university to study fashion.

You claim to come from an eccentric family. Tell me about them.

My grandma on my dad’s side is very eccentric. She’s the queen of the eccentrics, always has these really crazy stories.

Do you think that this has inspired you?

Yeah. My parents are quite weird as well in their own ways. I’ve had quite an unusual upbringing and I think that’s affected me. My older sister’s an artist, my other one’s a writer and my little sister is a micro-biologist so she went completely the opposite way.

Your collections are very textile-focused. Your clothes contain lots of embroidery and your accessories are made of wood vinyl. Why is textile so important to you?

I’ve always been really interested in textiles. At college, at one point when I was deciding what to study at uni, I considered doing textiles. I’ve also always really enjoyed drawing and I feel that embroidery is just another way of drawing really.

The collections that you’ve released so far are all quite casual, would you ever do one which is more formal?

I’m actually working on a collection for winter which has a few more formal pieces as I want to put a bit more of a show on but I wanted the collections to be really wearable and affordable and there are a lot of designers that just design nice frocks so I wanted to do something a bit different to that.

You’ve worked with quite a few designers too. Tell me about working with them.

I feel really lucky to have worked with them – people like Christopher Kane. I did work experience there when I was still at uni and that was really inspiring. Then I did some work at Antipodium where I did quite a bit of admin stuff and then I worked with Louise Gray which was really, really fun as it was very hands on. It actually made me enjoy the making part of fashion. She had quite a loose way of working which I really enjoyed.

Is there a specific famous person that you’d like to see in your clothes?

I absolutely love Kreayshawn, you know the one who did that ‘Gucci Gucci’ song? She wore a massive bow in her hair in the video.

Which is similar to your hair accessories collection…

I actually made those before seeing that video so that was just a coincidence but I like her because she has a little bit of a ghetto edge to her. Maybe that’s just the Liverpool side of me coming out….

So, are you just designing the autumn/winter collection at the moment? What’s it like?

It’s sort of mixture of casual wear and evening wear. I still want to keep it affordable with the casual wear and then I wanted to do something a bit more expensive so I’ve designed a few evening pieces.

What are your main plans for the year?

I want to carry on designing in my studio space just down the road as I really love it. It’s a big space and it’s so close to wear I live. I share it with lots of others, so I think it has quite a creative energy about it.

Words: Katie Wilkinson

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