Even the pictures I was doing at college – a little narrative based on a butterfly catcher, or a chimney sweep – the images were always telling stories. They were all scenarios and moods which I storyboarded and worked through – it’s exactly what I do now.

Your aim as a photographer is to get a picture of that person that means something. Portraits aren’t fantasies; they need to tell a truth.

When I was at college, the idea of fashion was more immediate to me, whereas art photography, the depth of it, was a different thing. Storytelling – fanciful storytelling – can only be told through fashion photography. It’s the perfect way to play with fantasy and dreams.

I like capturing stuff that is disappearing – that’s the point of photography. What I am photographing is an imaginary place that never existed, but is connected to something that has already been.

I’m very particular who I work with. I’m not interested in portraying women with a cliched, generic look. I’m interested in a model who I can take a portrait of.

Fantasy isn’t something I put into the pictures; I don’t try and inject them with a sense of play. But it’s about being an honest photographer; a photograph is as much of a mirror of the photographer as it is the subject.

The point of fashion is that you take the picture you want. And fashion is the only photography that allows fantasy, and I’m a fantasist.

I’ve never been in love with fashion, actually; trends and catwalks don’t interest me. I love clothes; I love them historically and currently. They represent a spirit of the times and the zeitgeist.

You have to raise the bar. Give yourself a challenge. Ask yourself, ‘How can one make the impossible materialise?’

I like capturing stuff that is disappearing - that’s the point of photography. What I am photographing is an imaginary place that never existed, but is connected to something that has already been.