100 Faces: A Search for the People Worth Photographing

100 Faces: A Search for the People Worth Photographing

I’ve been carrying an idea around for a long time, and it’s finally stepping out into the light. It’s called 100 Faces — a portrait project, and eventually a book, built around a single question: who are the people worth photographing?

Not famous. Not polished. Not chosen for how they’d look on a billboard. Just interesting — in the real sense of the word.

What “interesting” actually means

We’ve been trained to think “interesting” means “impressive.” A CEO. A celebrity. Someone with a CV you could frame. But the most compelling faces I’ve ever photographed didn’t belong to any of those people. They belonged to a man who’d been fixing the same neighbourhood’s shoes for forty years. A teenage beekeeper. A former nun who now breeds rescue greyhounds. A retired cartographer who still draws maps of places that don’t exist.

These are the people I’m looking for. The ones with a story that lives in the lines of their face. The ones whose hands tell you what they’ve done with their life before they open their mouth. The ones most of us walk past without realising what we’re walking past.

Why 100

One hundred is a number big enough to matter and small enough to still be personal. It means I have to choose carefully. Every face in this book earns its place. No filler, no duplicates, no “close enough.”

It also means the project has a horizon. This isn’t a Substack I’ll let drift for years. It’s a book with a beginning, a middle, and — eventually — a final page with the hundredth portrait on it.

How it will work

Each subject gets the same treatment: one session, natural light where possible, a short conversation, and a single page in the final book. I’ll write a few paragraphs about who they are and what they told me. Nothing dressed up. Nothing airbrushed into a cliché.

I’m not trying to make anyone look beautiful. I’m trying to make them look true.

Who I’m looking for

If you’re reading this and thinking of someone — a neighbour, a grandparent, a weird uncle, the woman who runs the flower stall, the bloke who taught you to fish, yourself — please send them my way. I want to hear about:

• People whose lives took an unexpected turn

• People who’ve practised a craft or obsession for decades

• People who live differently than most of us do

• People who’ve survived something most of us haven’t

• People who are simply, quietly, deeply themselves

You don’t need to “deserve” to be in the book. You just need a story worth sitting still for.

Get in touch

If you or someone you know belongs in 100 Faces, I want to hear from you. Drop me a message, send me a name, tell me why. The best portraits in this book are going to come from recommendations — from people who noticed something about someone else that deserves to be seen by more than just them.

One hundred faces. One hundred lives. One book.

Let’s find them together.