October 2025 marks two decades of creativity, collaboration, and community. Here's to all of it — the wins, the lessons, and the remarkable people who made it real.

I'll be honest — when I first started Wayne Sables Project, I wasn't thinking about anniversaries. I was thinking about the work. The next brief, the next idea, the next problem worth solving. Twenty years later, that hunger hasn't changed. But something else has: the magnitude of what this project has become, and just how many extraordinary people have had a hand in shaping it.

October 2025. Two decades. I'm not sure whether to laugh, cry, or just sit very quietly with a good cup of tea and let it all sink in.

Let's go with all three.

Documentary photographer Wayne Sables has spent twenty years photographing South Yorkshire — its people, landscapes, and industrial edges. Here’s what that actually looks like.

What Does It Actually Mean to Be a Documentary Filmmaker?

People ask me this more than you'd think. Usually at events, usually after I've explained what I do for the third time in a row. "So you make documentaries? Like the ones on Netflix?"

Sort of. Not exactly. Let me explain.

It's a fair question. Weddings dominate the photography market in South Yorkshire, and I'd be lying if I said the money wasn't tempting. But the honest answer is that I've never been drawn to it — not because there's anything wrong with wedding photography, but because it's simply not where my instincts live.  My instincts live in documentary. In real moments. In the kind of image that doesn't ask permission.