My favourite book photo project.
I wanted to share my latest and ongoing portrait project I’m currently producing in Suffolk, in conjunction with the Ipswich Book Festival.
The project is called My Favourite Book, about the books people never forget.
It brings together 23 people from Ipswich and Suffolk, each photographed with a book that has shaped them, inspired them, comforted them, or simply stayed with them across their life. The sitters include authors, curators, business owners, actors, broadcasters, musicians and people whose stories sit quietly but powerfully inside the community.
On the surface, it is a project about favourite books.
But the more I photograph it, the more I realise it is really about memory, inheritance, identity and the private objects we carry through life.
Each portrait is accompanied by the sitter’s own words, written as a short personal response to the book they chose. Some are funny. Some are deeply moving. Some are about childhood. Some are about grief, ambition, escape, education, or the simple pleasure of being taken somewhere else by language.
For me, as a portrait photographer, the project has become a reminder that a portrait is rarely just about the person in front of the camera. It is about what surrounds them, what shaped them, what they choose to reveal, and what they are still carrying.
The project is being produced in collaboration with Ipswich Book Festival, with a launch event planned at The Ancient House in Ipswich on Friday 2nd October 2026.
I wondered whether Professional Photo might be interested in featuring the project, either as a portfolio feature, a short interview, or a piece about how personal projects can help working photographers build visibility, community, and creative purpose alongside commercial practice.
That last point feels important to me.
Like many professional photographers, I work commercially, photographing people for businesses, organisations, editorial commissions and personal branding. But personal projects are where I test ideas, build relationships, develop language around my work, and remind people what photography can still do when it slows down and pays attention.
This project has already sparked unexpected conversations. People are not simply naming books; they are telling me who they were when the book found them.
That is where the real portrait begins.
What's your favourite book?
