Astrid Hannah is a British-born photographer, born 2004, whose practice centres around the analogue processes. Working predominantly with 35mm and 5x4 black and white film, she produces hand-developed prints that emphasise physicality, intimacy, and tonal depth.

Across her work, Hannah explores themes of humanity, passion, loss, and identity. Her images are often emotionally charged, seeking to evoke a sense of psychological presence through aesthetics and subtle detail. Recently, her practice has become increasingly personal, informed by her past career as a high-performance swimmer.

Her current body of work is an introspective exploration of this history—revisiting and rebuilding the environment of competitive swimming from a new perspective as a photographer. Beginning with self-portraiture and becoming increasingly abstract when moving to psychological imagery of empty pools using 5x4 sheet film, the project reflects on absence, memory, and the lingering imprint of a once-familiar space. Finally moving into portraiture maintaining this psychological element, using the camera and subjects as a tool to highlight this complex, unbalanced relationship between herself now and her past self as an athlete. Ultimately acting as a cathartic process, finding harmony between these two very different passions.

Hannah hand developed two portraits in the dark room at 30x40 inches and made an accompanying book full of dark and high-contrast, detailed images around the pool, shot on 35mm black and white film. Focusing on intimate, close-up details rather than wide establishing shots, by isolating fragments of the environment - light on water, the texture of tiles, the edge of a drain, or splashes of movement - the images become less descriptive and more psychological. Allowing the audience’s interpretation, built by their own experiences and feelings, to shape the way they view and respond to the images. With a small passage of writing at the front and back of the book, depicting the intense regime of competitive swimming, changing the way the viewer might read the images, bringing the motivation and concept behind the work to light.

Hannah has exhibited work at BAD Space and AGAR Space in Bournemouth, with an upcoming exhibition at Copeland Gallery, London.