I was very happy to be told I’d won the award this year. To have my work recognised by Shutter Hub is an honour. I really respect the work they do in providing opportunities for and championing up and coming photographers.

A364 is a work in progress. The earliest images in this series where made when, in a bit of a rut with my work and not having anything in particular to photograph, I decided to just take a drive and see what I could find. This soon became kind of a working practice; just get in the car and drive. This was during winter, in the English countryside, a lot of grey, dreary days and the atmosphere I found along the roads and in the small towns and villages seemed to fit my mood at the time. The images I made seemed to reflect this too. It felt right to keep going and allow something to develop organically.

Somerset is a mostly rural county situated in the South West of England and photographing in this way is kind of a slow process; it’s very quiet out on the road. This is where the imagination takes over, particularly when editing, and the pictures seem to suggest these small dramas happening along the roadside. I love what happens sometimes when you place two images together and create a new world which is neither real nor totally fictional, but something in between.