Andrea Mellen

I met Rochelle at a skate park in Belfast when I was scouting for locations to photograph. She was working there, and was so open to talking that I asked her right there if I could hang out with her for a week or two and photograph her and her friends. She agreed without any hesitation. 

The first day we met after that, she and some of her guy friends were going to swim at a nearby river. When we got there, I could tell the guys didn't know if they could really be themselves around me. I told them I wasn't there to judge them at all, to be themselves and forget I was there. So they did.