Hi, I’m Melly!.

A proper country bumpkin. I grew up in Shropshire — a wonderful sleepy corner of England filled with rolling green hills, winding country lanes, ancient hedgerows, and little villages that seem to have been sitting there quietly forever. It’s the sort of place that gets under your skin without you really noticing, and I think I’ve carried a little bit of it with me wherever I’ve gone. I’m also a lover of cats, motorbikes, antique shops, and wandering through French streets taking my job as a crêpe-enthusiast very seriously.

I live in the quaint and quirky town of New Mills with my two brilliant boys named Isaac and Lucas, who both inspired me to grab my camera at every opportunity to capture all of their adventures. I also share my home with four rescue cats, and a rather lovely rugby-playing Francophile named Sam. I’m an ex-secondary school English teacher, who loves writing stories that I’ll never finish, reading, and collecting dusty old books. My dream is to have a circular library inside a circular house.

Living just a stone’s throw from the beautiful scenery of the Peak District means that I love getting outdoors whenever I possibly can. I think my love of being outside goes back much further than that, though. Some of my most precious childhood memories are of long walks with my dad, usually with his camera around his neck and me trailing along behind with my own little wind-up camera, trying very seriously to copy him.

I remember sheltering underneath trees when the rain came, squelching our way through muddy paths and following little tracks down towards lakes. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but I know now how special those ordinary days were. I still love being somewhere wild and windswept, camera in hand, knowing how quickly these little moments pass, and wanting to keep a piece of them with me.

Perhaps that's why I’m so drawn to photographing people outdoors now. There’s something about being outside that makes everything feel a little more natural. People relax, children run off, clothes get muddy, and you can simply lose yourself in the day — laughing, wandering, and being with the people you love. I think that’s what keeps me taking photographs: knowing that the ordinary little moments we barely notice at the time can become the ones we miss most, and that one day, they’ll be the moments we want to remember.