The Neighborhood

After spending a year in London, I moved to a small village in Essex—a shift that felt both drastic and disorienting. I was leaving behind the energy of the city for a quieter, more insular world. At first, I felt isolated, surrounded by landscapes and architecture that seemed unfamiliar, almost foreign. Yet, at the same time, I was drawn to explore, to understand the place I had chosen to call home. The Neighborhood is my attempt to navigate this transition. Through a detached, observational lens, I documented the village and its surroundings—the country roads, the suburban houses, the stillness of the rural landscape. The images, taken in Ingatestone, Chelmsford, and Shenfield, reflect my sense of estrangement but also my growing connection to these spaces. I was not photographing people, but rather the traces they left behind: the way homes were built, the way roads cut through fields, the way the environment shaped everyday life in ways both subtle and profound. Over time, my relationship with the place evolved. What once felt unfamiliar started to reveal its own quiet rhythm. By framing the built environment rather than its inhabitants, I began to understand how a place can shape identity, how it can feel both distant and intimate at the same time. The Neighborhood is not just about geography—it is about the slow process of finding belonging in a landscape that, at first, felt like it belonged to someone else.