Sophie Mayanne

Creating intensely personal images, meet the photographer exalting life’s little details

A graduate of Middlesex University, Sophie Mayanne’s exceptional photography is worth much celebration. Subjects’ physical traits are reified as subjects themselves, with delicate tones and exquisite shadows combining to communicate these “little irregularities … the small details that can stay with you.” This concerted focus and rawness distinguishes Sophie’s work, and so it is unsurprising that she describes her ethos as about expressing “elements of a subject’s personality, solitude – some of the workings beneath, mixed with my own.”

As for Sophie, an element often present in her work is the sustained exploration of what she sees as the irony of black and white photography. As she told us, she feels that “sometimes, you see more colours in a black and white image” – an effect also produced in virtue of the relaxed working atmosphere Sophie seeks to maintain. Only when everyone is relaxed can the honesty of the photos on display below be achieved.

Perhaps the most crucial factor in her development is her continued work with Boys by Girls Magazine. After interning at the magazine during her second year of university, Sophie is now Digital Editor and cites Cecille Harris, Editor-in-Chief, as an incredibly strong influence given her advice as to how to push her own photographic voice. It is by developing her portfolio while keeping newly learned editorial considerations in mind, then, that Sophie is able to increasingly demonstrate the impeccable level of professionalism which has seen her work with Boycott Magazine, Dazed and Wonderland. We look forward to what’s to come…

sophie-mayanne.com