Lydia Roberts is a British artist and photographer whose work moves between photography, painting and drawing.

There’s a dreamlike quality to her photographs - bodies, light and familiar places become slightly ambiguous, as though you’re looking at something half remembered rather than something directly observed.

I’ve admired Lydia’s work for some time, particularly the way she seems less interested in documenting what something looks like and more interested in what it feels like.

For the second in our Ten Questions series, I wanted to ask Lydia about instinct, memory, making images that resist time, and what happens when photography and painting begin to inform one another.

1.

You've spoken about wanting to make images that feel unaffected by time. What is it about a photograph being recognisably now that you find yourself wanting to escape from?

It’s the signage, the cars, the smart watches, the AirPods. All of these seem so ugly to me. Perhaps they make our lives more ‘convenient’, but visually, they distract from what I’m actually interested in — the people or the environment.

2.

The human form appears constantly in your work, but often partially - obscured, reflected, cropped or almost disappearing into the image. Are you interested in the person themselves, or more in what the body can become within a picture?

I’m more interested in surprising myself! I think when I’m shooting a person, objects, light, reflective surfaces, etc., can all join forces and create something unexpected. Of course, there are certain faces that demand, for whatever reason, to be seen in their full glory. But I’m all about feeding curiosity.

3.

You've described being fascinated by light since childhood - even looking directly into the sun to experience the colours and shapes it created. Do you think you're still trying to recreate that feeling when you make photographs now?

Well, I try not to stare into the sun too much these days. (Apart from the solar eclipse the other week. I panicked at all the articles popping up on my feed about going permanently blind, but I seem to be ok!?) Light has become a little more mechanical now, at least my understanding of natural light. So I’m trying to force myself into new situations with light, like shooting at night or with very little light. It’s so easy to get stuck on something you know.

4.

Your photographs often seem to sit somewhere between something witnessed and something remembered. How important is memory to the way you see?

I don’t consciously think about memory as I’m shooting. The way I see feels more in line with witnessing. I like the idea that I’m noticing something in this moment that will later turn into a memory. But really, I’m mostly wrapped up in the image, and what it looks like.

5.

You work across photography, painting and drawing. Has painting changed the photographs you make - perhaps allowing you to become less concerned with what a photograph is supposed to look like?

Perhaps yes. I’m always thinking in terms of images — what makes a good one. I rarely think about what a photograph is supposed to look like — in fact, I’m not sure I have ever thought about that! From a technical standpoint, if someone were to inspect my work or the way I work — they’d probably find many flaws and incongruencies. But it’s the final image that counts, that’s what we are left to look at.

6.

There's often something deliberately unresolved in your pictures - reflections, movement, things seen through glass, moments where you're not quite sure what you're looking at. What interests you about withholding information from the viewer?

Probably because I’m not so sure what I’m looking at myself! Sometimes when I’m looking through my images after I’ve taken them, I’m genuinely shocked because I have no idea what I’m looking at. So it’s not necessarily an intentional withholding.

On the other hand, there are times when I’ll use these devices to deliberately block the viewer — why, I’m not always sure! I’d probably have to lie down on a couch to find out.

7.

You live and work in the South of France, away from the constant activity of a major art or fashion city. Do you think living somewhere quieter has changed what you notice - or perhaps protected the way you work?

Yeah, I’m essentially living in a wad of bubblewrap here. Every now and then I have to go pop myself in London or Paris, but honestly, I’m much happier here. I’d say 98% of my attention can go into the work itself, and 2% (or probably more, actually) sadly gets diluted by platforms like Instagram.

8.

You've said that you're always observing, even when you don't have a camera. Do you think being a photographer eventually changes your relationship with ordinary life - that you begin collecting pictures in your head even when you aren't making them?

Yes, I wish I was told that before I started! There should be some sort of warning.

As for collecting images, I’m not so sure it’s that — but more a kind of surveillance. I tend to fixate on faces or tiny details and, by just looking, sometimes that’s enough. It could emerge in a photo 10 years later!

9.

Your work has crossed into publications, fashion, album artwork and commercial commissions without losing its identity. When somebody is paying you to make an image, how do you protect the instinctive part of your work from becoming too considered?

Honestly, it’s not so often that I get paid to make images! It’s not my full-time job. But, when I do, I don’t change anything about the way that I shoot. Of course, I respond to a brief and that’s different from my normal way of working — but it allows me to exercise my imagination and come up with ideas. Which, actually, I don’t feel like I do day to day. It’s normally about documenting what is already there. I have nearly 20 years of making images behind me now, so my creative instinct has had enough time to form and be ready to go in whatever circumstance I find myself in. That’s quite a wonderful feeling, actually.

10.

You've been making photographs since you were a teenager. After spending that long looking, what are you trying to become less interested in as an artist?

Less interested in what people I don’t know are doing on Instagram.

Oliver Kolding Palm is a Swedish photographer whose work sits somewhere between observation, abstraction and diary.

His photographs have a quiet confidence to them. They never rush to explain themselves, instead asking you to spend a little longer looking.

I came across Oliver's work online recently and found myself returning to it. I wanted to ask him ten questions about photography, paying attention and learning to trust your own eye.

1.

Your photographs often feel discovered rather than constructed. When you're walking through the world, what actually makes you stop? Is it light, form, colour, or something that's harder to explain?

It’s usually instinct more than anything. Sometimes it’s the light or an expression, but most of the time I couldn’t really tell you why I stopped.

2.

Many photographers spend years trying to develop a recognisable style. Looking at your work, it already feels unmistakably yours. Was that something you consciously searched for, or did it simply appear through making enough photographs?

It happened gradually. I never sat down and thought, “this is how I want my work to look.” I just kept returning to the same process because I enjoyed it, and I suppose the style came with that.

3.

Your pictures seem comfortable with ambiguity. They rarely tell the viewer exactly what they're looking at or how they should feel. Do you actively resist explanation, or is that just a consequence of the way you photograph?

I quite like not knowing everything about a photograph myself. If it keeps me looking, I hope it’ll do the same for someone else.

4.

When you edit a body of work, what are you actually looking for? A technically strong photograph, or a picture that keeps revealing something each time you return to it?

I’m looking for the photographs that keep my attention. I don’t really mind if they’re technically imperfect, as long as they still make me curious.

5.

There seems to be a fascination with ordinary things in your work - a flower, a face, a shadow, a fragment of a room. Do you think photographers train themselves to notice differently, or were you always someone who paid attention?

I think the more photographs you make, the more you realise that ordinary things are rarely that ordinary if you spend enough time looking at them.

6.

You've self-published several books in a relatively short space of time. At what point does a collection of photographs stop being individual pictures and become a body of work?

It’s usually only obvious in hindsight. I’ll make photographs over a period of time, and eventually I notice they’re all asking the same question in different ways.

7.

Do you think photographs lose something when they're consumed one at a time on Instagram? Your work feels like it wants to be experienced slowly, almost as a sequence rather than individual images.

I think they do. Instagram is great for sharing work, but I still think photographs make more sense when they’re seen together. That’s one of the reasons I keep making books.

8.

If someone looked through your archive without knowing who made it, what would you hope they learnt about the person behind the camera?

I hope they’d think I was interested in the world around me. That’s probably the reason I picked up a camera in the first place.

9.

Do you think photographers spend too much time chasing new cameras? If somebody took away all but one body and one lens tomorrow, how much would it really change the photographs you make?

I get asked about my camera and recipes quite a lot. I’ve always found that a bit odd. They’re just tools. If I only had one camera and one lens tomorrow, I don’t think the photographs would change very much.

10.

You've achieved a great deal very quickly—books, exhibitions and publications before turning thirty. What are you trying to become less interested in as a photographer?

Validation, I suppose. It’s nice when people respond to the work, but I don’t think it’s a very good reason to keep making it.

There's a quiet pressure today to know a little about everything.

A new book. A new podcast. A new camera. A new city. Another opinion. Every day arrives with another invitation to move on before we've properly arrived. The internet has made us incredibly familiar with the world. We recognise more people, places and ideas than any generation before us.

But familiarity isn't the same as understanding. Real understanding has always demanded something unfashionable - Time. Not simply looking, but looking again. The same road in different weather. The same author read for a second time. The same craft repeated until instinct quietly replaces instruction. The things that stay with us are rarely the newest things - they're the things we've returned to.

The older I get, the less interested I become in travelling to make photographs. I'm far more interested in discovering what I've been walking past for the last fifteen years (although I this may have been pushed onto me thanks to my current duties!) It's a strange thing to realise, that the streets you've taken for granted can still surprise you - that familiar light can fall differently. That an ordinary wall can become extraordinary if you stop walking long enough to notice it.

Perhaps places don't become exhausted but perhaps our attention does.

I think the same is true of people. And books. And music. And work.

The deepest friendships aren't built through constant novelty. They're built through years of shared experience. The books that shape us are often the ones we return to decades later. The songs we never tire of reveal something different depending on who we are when we hear them. and it's 'Depth' asks us to stay.

Photography has taught me that. Not because it rewards travelling further. But because it I think it rewards seeing better. The photographers I admire rarely became interesting by constantly searching for new subjects. Many returned to the same families, streets, landscapes - year after year. Their photographs became richer because their relationship with those places became richer. They weren't collecting images and moving on, they were building a conversation.

Looking back, I realise that's probably why Mamnick has never chased trends. For nearly fifteen years I've kept returning to the same ideas. British manufacturing. Japanese craftsmanship. Sheffield. Steel. Cloth. Objects that improve through use rather than novelty.

From the outside that might look repetitive but to me, it feels like paying attention. Each product isn't an attempt to reinvent the last one. It's another conversation with the same ideas. Another opportunity to understand them a little better.

We're often told that breadth is intelligence and that consuming more means understanding more but I'm no longer convinced. A meaningful life isn't built by touching everything - It's built by returning, again and again, until the ordinary begins to reveal itself. The rarest thing today isn't information. It's meaning.

And perhaps meaning has always belonged to those willing to stay with something long enough to discover its depth.

What do you think?

This Journal was never intended to be one-way.

If this piece resonated - or you disagree - leave a comment below.

Words and photos by Thom Barnett

People often ask how Mamnick began.

The truth is, it didn't begin with a business plan. It began with curiosity.

I was interested in clothing long before I understood business. I loved (and collected) British-made outdoor garments, military surplus, cycling jerseys, workwear and the stories hidden inside well-made objects. At the same time I was becoming obsessed with photography, art + design, and the places that shaped the way people lived.

Looking back, I wasn't trying to build a company. I was simply trying to make a life around the things I couldn't stop thinking about and doing. Starting a brand became the only way I knew how. For years I thought that would be enough.

If you make honest work, people will find it. If you care enough, it'll somehow work itself out but the reality is rather different. Making something is only part of the job. The rest is persuasion. Marketing. Photography. Social media. Cash flow. The algorithm. Advertising. Conversion rates.

There are weeks where I've spent more time looking at website analytics than I have thinking about fabrics and days where I'm writing emails instead of designing products. Moments where I've questioned whether the whole thing is worth continuing at all. Nobody really tells you that when you decide to turn your passion into your livelihood. They tell you to follow your heart. They don't tell you that your heart eventually has to learn bookkeeping! 15 years on, I’m still going - but with more mouths to feed! 

The strange thing is, I don't think I'm naturally suited to running a business. I'm too stubborn. Not in an argumentative way. Creatively stubborn. Once I believe something should exist, it's incredibly difficult for me to change it simply because somebody tells me it'll sell better.

I've watched trends come and go. I've watched brands reinvent themselves every few years in search of attention. I've watched people build businesses around algorithms they don't control. I've never really wanted to do any of that and not because I think I'm right, simply because I don't think I'd recognise the work afterwards.

People often say you have to separate creativity from commerce. I've never believed that. I think the two should live together. The problem comes when commerce starts making all the creative decisions. Once that happens, the work slowly stops belonging to you.

Maybe that's why the Journal has become such an important part of Mamnick. It asks nothing of me except honesty. No launch. No campaign. No conversion rate. Just an opportunity to write about the things that hold my attention in a moment. 

Photography. Clothing. Architecture. Observation. In many ways, I think these pages explain Mamnick better than the products ever could.

As I was thinking about all this recently, another thought occurred to me. One day my boys will be old enough to read these Journal entries. Perhaps they'll wonder why their dad spent so much of his life making clothes, taking photographs and writing essays that didn't always seem to make commercial sense and I hope they don't judge it by whether it made me wealthy. I hope they understand something far more important. That I followed my curiosity. That I believed paying attention mattered. That I cared enough to spend years trying to make things properly and that I was willing to accept the uncertainty that came with doing work that felt true.

Over the last fifteen years I've realised that Mamnick was never really about clothing. Clothing simply became the medium. It's always been about paying attention and following ideas - trying to make honest work. Remaining curious enough to keep learning and stubborn enough to keep believing that your own way of seeing the world has value.

I don't know if this way of working is the easiest. It probably isn't.

I don't know if it'll ever make me wealthy. It probably won't.

But I'd rather spend twenty years building something that feels true than five years building something that no longer feels like mine.

Perhaps that's what Mamnick has really become. Not a fashion brand. A place where I get to follow my curiosity. Everything else is simply what keeps the lights on.

If my boys ever read this years from now, I hope that's what they take away. Not that they should start a clothing brand. Not that creativity is easy. Simply that if there's something they can't stop thinking about - something that keeps pulling them towards it - they should have the courage to follow it. 100%. Whatever the outcome.

Because making a life that feels like your own is sometimes the greatest success of all.

What do you think?

The Journal was never intended to be one-way.

If this piece resonated - or you disagree - leave a comment below.

Words and photos by Thom Barnett

There was a time when I thought I'd end up working in fine art. Instead, I quietly walked away.

It wasn't because I'd stopped enjoying making work. It wasn't because I'd lost interest in visual culture. It was because I became increasingly disillusioned with the language that seemed to surround it.

Every exhibition appeared to be exploring the relationship between something and something else. Memory and place. Identity and materiality. Landscape and belonging.

I realised I was spending more time reading statements than looking at the work and, somewhere along the line, I began to feel that learning the language was becoming more important than learning to see.

Of course, there are artists whose writing genuinely deepens their work. But too often it felt as though the explanation had become more important than the object, photograph or installation itself. I found myself wondering whether the work would still hold my attention if you removed the paragraph beside it.

That was never the kind of maker I wanted to become.

I've always believed that the strongest work doesn't arrive demanding to be understood. It doesn't need permission or justification. It simply exists, confident enough to let people bring their own experiences to it.

A few evenings ago I found myself photographing a striped plant outside somebody's front garden. Later it was the reflection on the handle of a parked car. Then a single rose catching the last of the day's light against a window.

None of them were remarkable - they weren't symbols or metaphors. I wasn't exploring the relationship between nature and the built environment or investigating ideas around memory, domesticity or time - they simply held my attention for a moment. Maybe that's enough.

In fact, perhaps that's where the best work begins. Not with an explanation, but with observation. I've always admired photographers who trusted their pictures. The image came first. Any meaning arrived afterwards, often differently for every person who looked at it. They understood that mystery isn't a weakness. It's an invitation.

The same applies to well-made objects. A good chair doesn't need a manifesto. A well-cut jacket doesn't become interesting because somebody wrote five hundred words about it.

The work has to earn the words, not the other way round.

We're surrounded by things that ask to be admired before they've proved themselves. Every launch is accompanied by an essay. Every object arrives carrying the weight of its own explanation. Perhaps we've forgotten that people are perfectly capable of deciding what something means for themselves.

I've never wanted Mamnick to work like that.

If a photograph makes somebody pause, that's enough. If a shirt becomes more beautiful years after it was made, that's enough. If the evening light changes the way you see something you've walked past a hundred times, that's enough. Not everything needs translating.

Sometimes the most honest thing a maker can do is trust the work, step aside and let people look.

What do you think?

The Journal was never intended to be one-way.

If this piece resonated - or you disagree - leave a comment below.

Words and photos by Thom Barnett

There has never been a better time to look at photographs. Or a worse time.

Every day we're shown beautifully lit interiors, immaculate clothing, perfect coffee, mountain roads, old Land Rovers, watches, portraits, architecture, ceramics and landscapes. None of it is particularly difficult to find anymore - just open your phone and it's all there within seconds.

The standard has become incredibly high. The problem is that volume has risen even faster.

We're consuming more images in a day than we used to in months. By lunchtime you've probably seen enough "great" photography to fill a gallery wall. After a while, even genuinely good work begins to blur into everything else. It's not because the photographs aren't good - It's because we've forgotten how to really look.

The internet promised endless inspiration. Instead it often feels like endless consumption. We scroll from one image to the next, giving each one barely enough time to register before moving on. The next image has already arrived. Then another. Then another. Nothing has time to settle.

I sometimes wonder whether we've confused collecting references with developing taste. Saving images isn't the same as understanding them. Knowing what looks good isn't the same as knowing why it looks good.

Perhaps that's why so much of what we see now feels strangely familiar. The references are shared. The colours are shared. The compositions are shared. Eventually everyone arrives at roughly the same place - not because people lack talent, but because they're all looking in the same direction.

Recently, I've found myself becoming less interested in making images that shout and more interested in making images that simply ask you to stop for a moment. The world hasn't become less interesting. We've just become accustomed to looking past it.

Perhaps the antidote to saturation isn't making louder work. Perhaps it's paying closer attention and attention might be one of the rarest things we have left.

What do you think?

The Journal was never intended to be one-way.

If this piece resonated - or you disagree - leave a comment below.

Words & photo by Thom Barnett and Craig Fleming

I've been thinking a lot about observation recently.

Not photography - Observation. The act of paying attention. It feels increasingly unfashionable.

Everything now seems to demand a reaction. An opinion. A position. Every story has to be judged before it's even understood. Every image has to become content. Every experience has to be shared before it's had chance to settle.

We've become remarkably good at responding. But, I'm not sure we've become any better at looking.

When I started Mamnick, I don't think I realised that most of the ideas weren't really coming from fashion at all. They came from places. People. Buildings. Old photographs. Cycling. Fishing. The way morning light falls across a Derbyshire hillside. A conversation over a coffee or a pint down the pub. 

None of those things were trying to sell me anything. They simply existed.

I think that's what continues to interest me. Not creating stories for the sake of having stories, but noticing the ones that are already there.

Sometimes I wonder whether we've confused originality with invention. Perhaps originality is just paying closer attention than everyone else. The internet has made it incredibly easy to reference what somebody else has already seen but It's much harder to notice something yourself.

This is probably why I still try and carry a camera almost everywhere. Not because I think I'm going to make a masterpiece but because it's a reminder to slow down. To look properly and to notice.

Some photographs become campaigns. Most don't.

Some observations become products. Most don't.

That doesn't make them any less valuable. The product is often just the evidence that you were paying attention.

When people ask where ideas come from, I don't really have a clever answer.

I don't sit waiting for inspiration. I walk. I read. I look and I listen. Eventually something refuses to leave me alone and only then does it become worth making.

Perhaps that's all Mamnick has ever been. Not a fashion brand. A practice of observation.

What do you think?

The Journal was never intended to be one-way.

If this piece resonated - or you disagree - leave a comment below.

Words by Thom Barnett

Photography by Craig Fleming

Fashion has always been built on aspiration.

There's nothing particularly new about that. Long before social media, brands were selling a version of life as much as they were selling clothes. Better houses, better holidays, better cars, better looking people. The idea that if you bought the right thing, perhaps a small part of that world might rub off on you.

I understand the appeal because I'm not immune to it myself.

I like beautiful things. I appreciate good cloth. I enjoy a well-made shoe and I've spent an embarrassing amount of money having suits made from some of the finest fabrics in the world despite having very few occasions to wear them.

The contradiction isn't lost on me. What I struggle with is something slightly different.

The older I get, the harder I find it to connect with the performance that surrounds so much of modern fashion. Perhaps it comes from where I grew up. I was raised in Rotherham. My grandfather worked in steel. My father worked down the pit. Like a lot of people from that background, there was a healthy scepticism towards appearances. Not because people didn't appreciate quality, but because there was an understanding that appearances and reality weren't always the same thing.

You learnt to look beyond the label. You learnt that expensive and valuable were not necessarily interchangeable. You learnt that some people talked a good game. That instinct has never really left me.

These days it often feels like fashion spends more time documenting itself than making anything. The same faces appear from one campaign to the next. The same references are recycled. The same opinions circulate around the same corners of the internet. Every brand claims individuality while increasingly resembling every other brand.

The internet promised endless choice. Instead it often feels as though it has produced endless versions of the same thing. Maybe that's why I find myself drawn towards subjects that don't fit neatly within the fashion industry.

A day spent fishing. A long ride through Derbyshire. An old block of flats. Old workshops and factories. Not because they're anti-fashion - they simply feel more real to me than much of the theatre that now surrounds it.

Mamnick has never really been an attempt to create a fantasy. If anything, it's probably the opposite. Most of what we've done over the years has been an attempt to document the things that already exist around us. The landscapes, trades, habits and communities that helped shape the brand in the first place. I suppose that's why I feel slightly uncomfortable whenever people talk about lifestyle. The word itself implies something curated. Something constructed. Something to aspire towards and in my eyes, most real lives aren't like that. Mine certainly isn't. It's largely made up of work, family, occasional moments outdoors and the constant challenge of trying to keep a small independent business moving forward.

Perhaps that's why I've become increasingly interested in observation rather than aspiration. Not because aspiration is wrong. Because observation feels rarer.

Anybody can sell a dream but paying attention to what's already there feels like the harder thing to do. And perhaps the more interesting thing too.

Words Thom Barnett

Photography Craig Fleming + Thom Barnett

There is a tendency to talk about buildings as though they exist independently of the people who occupy them and the Sharrow flats suggest otherwise.

Built as part of Sheffield's post-war housing programme, the blocks rise from the hillside in long horizontal bands of brick, concrete and steel. Their architecture is repetitive and uncompromising. Columns, balconies, windows and walkways repeat themselves floor after floor, creating a rhythm that feels almost industrial. Separated only by their distinct and washed-out colours. 

From a distance, the flats can appear anonymous but closer inspection tells a different story.

A bicycle stored on a balcony. A row of washing hung out to dry. A cluster of satellite dishes bolted to the wall. Curtains, flowers, improvised screens and small acts of decoration. Evidence of lives being lived within a structure designed around uniformity.

While much attention has been given to Sheffield's more celebrated housing projects, the Sharrow flats remain largely overlooked. They are neither fashionable nor particularly easy to romanticise. They continue to function as what they were always intended to be: homes.

Perhaps that is what makes them interesting.

These photographs are less concerned with architecture than with the relationship between architecture and the people who inhabit it. The building provides the framework; its residents provide the character.

The result is a place that feels undeniably Sheffield. Honest, imperfect and quietly human.

The Sharrow flats are often viewed from a distance. This is a closer look.

Words by Thom Barnett

Photos by Craig Fleming and Thom Barnett

There has never been a better time to make products. Factories are easier to find, software is more accessible and manufacturing knowledge is freely available - anyone with enough determination can launch a brand from a mobile phone.

And yet most brands feel strangely empty and not because the products are bad, because products alone are not enough.

A product can be manufactured and it can be photographed. It can be marketed and sold and It can even be successful. But that doesn't mean it means anything.

Many brands understand how to make things - far fewer understand how to build a world around those things and that difference matters.

A product without narrative eventually just becomes inventory. Narrative without product becomes theatre.

The interesting brands understand both.

They understand that people are rarely buying an object in isolation. They are buying into a set of ideas, values, references and aspirations. They are buying a point of view.

The strongest brands in the world rarely begin with products. They begin with a belief. A belief about quality, about place and about culture - A belief about how things should be done. The products are simply evidence of that belief.

For fifteen years Mamnick has existed somewhere between product and narrative.

Cycling jerseys, knitwear, knives, jackets, steel, photography, fishing, running, manufacturing, Sheffield, England. On paper it makes very little sense and yet somehow it all belongs together. Not because the products are related, because the ideas are.

The things we make are merely different expressions of the same values: independence, utility, permanence, craftsmanship, curiosity and place.

Perhaps that is what separates a collection of products from a brand worth remembering. Not scale, not marketing spend and not growth.

Meaning.

The brands that endure are rarely the loudest.

They simply create worlds people want to spend time in.

And the products become souvenirs from those worlds.

—

MAMNICK STUDIO

Brand, Product & Cultural Direction