The post-COVID landscape opened my eyes to the damage that the lockdowns did to my social skills. Where once I found myself easily able to start conversations and carry them, now, as I walked back through the door of my secondary school to begin my GCSEs, it felt like each conversation, be it big or small, was a mountain to climb over. The beginnings, middles and ends of each conversation with friends and acquaintances brought on nothing but and overwhelming feeling of wanting to crawl back inside my bedroom and lock myself away once again. But, instead of hiding from a virus seeking to destroy my body, I wanted to hide from the socialising seeking to destroy my soul.

It was only after I was finally able to regain the skills and overcome the struggle of socialisation that I picked up my camera to reflect on these feelings I had. Exploring my home, I began to photograph the windows I would spend hours staring out of. The images produced taking on a more abstract look into my mind at the time. Trapped, isolated and scared, all with a view through clear glass that soon felt like prison bars. A threshold to the outside, yet always something lurking in the distance as a constant reminder of the damage the years locked away did.