I made this photograph in 1991. It hung in my mother’s house for a coupla decades. I’ve just hung it in my lounge.

I love this photograph.

I called it The Lovely Boys because they were my flatmate’s sons best friends, and they were wild, and lovely.

This photograph, it reminds me where I started from.

I was 21 and heavily influenced by Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus.

My favourite thing about it - apart from the dirty beauty of the boys - is the spit on the lip of the boy on the right. As a portrait photographer for over two decades, I was always looking for someone’s beauty, but as well I was looking for that extra thing within an image that couldn’t be constructed. Like the spit on the lip of the boy.

I’ve begun to miss people’s faces and what I saw there.

Maybe it’s because for the first time in about thirty years, I’m living on my own. Maybe it’s the deep connection I generally formed with my portrait subjects that I miss.

It is such an honour, when someone trusts you enough to open up in front of you. Let’s you see inside.