Photography Award nominee Sophie Gerrard: 'Here was a hospital, in the middle of nowhere with no electricity supply and no roads managing to cure the sight of over 100 people every day for free.'

Was there a moment, or a time period for you that made you decide to be a photographer, if so please could you tell us a bit about it?

I started my career as an environmental scientist. After a short while in that job however I knew that I wanted to be the one reporting and documenting the stories we worked on. I had also been travelling in South East Asia around that time and had become obsessed with the work of Don McCullin and the other war photographers in Vietnam. I decided then that I was going to return to art college to study documentary photography. It seemed a logical way to combine what I was most interested in. I then went on to study for an MA in photojournalism and I've been working as a documentary photographer ever since I completed that course. I'm passionate about visual storytelling, I feel that if you can catch someone’s attention with something and make them stop and take a second look, then that's powerful. Someone who inspired me greatly was Tim Hetherington and his early work from Indonesia and also the wall graffiti photographs from Liberia. His visual approach to an abstract form of documentary and storytelling using medium format was what led me towards the camera I use. I enjoy the slow process and the discipline of working at a pace which I think for me generates more intimate photographs and details which help tell a story.

What surprised you most about your work out in India?

This particular project, Protectors of Sight, began as a charity commission. I really didn't know what to expect. I'd worked and travelled in India many times before coming to this project but I'd never been to the north east part of the country. Popular opinion of Bihar is often that it is dangerous, and a no go place. All I knew was that it was extremely rural, travel was going to be difficult, at times we would walk to villages as there were simply no roads. The project was going to be challenging. The story really interested me though, here was a hospital, in the middle of nowhere with no electricity supply and no roads managing to cure the sight of over 100 people every day for free. When I got there the first striking thing was the lengths to which the outreach teams from this hospital have to go to in order to just find people to bring back to the hospital for treatment. It's quite extraordinary.

Despite the difficulties, and the poverty, the people I met in Bihar were some of the most generous I have ever met. What never ceases to amaze me is that those who I meet who have so very little, are often the ones who offer the most. I'll never cease to be surprised by people's generosity when I am there to photograph them. It's always humbling for me.

Are you generally inspired spontaneously, or do you tend to plan?

To make a successful story I need to plan. I need to organise access, travel, timing, logistics, then there is equipment and film etc. It all needs planning. Research and planning before a trip and then editing afterwards probably takes up 80% of the time, the actual shooting is short in comparison, or at least it can seem that way to me sometimes. Visually, however, it's another thing, with all the planning in the world you never know what you're going to see when you get there, how the story might turn, and where it might take you. What I do try to do is to have some sort of visual idea in my head of where I might start. Things often follow on from there. I remember with E-wasteland, I had heard about the e-waste workshops and the people who worked there. I had seen some reportage photographs of the yards and the locations. So for me that helped, visually I decided how I wanted to shoot the project, that I wanted to shoot the interiors of workshops and also make portraits of those who worked there. But that was the extent of the visual planning, it all depended on what I found or where I was guided to on the days I was actually there. I generally have an idea of what I am trying to communicate, who my audience is and how I'm going to try and achieve that. Most of the other stuff can really be down to chance and being in the right place at the right time.

What's next for you?

Right now I'm working on promoting my exhibition Protectors of Sight and trying to find some follow on venues for the work to be exhibited in. I've got some plans to show it in Edinburgh, my home town. The Photographers' Gallery in London are featuring the work in their Print Sales and I'm delighted about that. Project wise I'm working on some new shorter term editorial projects in the UK and applying for funding, at the same time as trying to do as much editorial work as I can. It's a slightly difficult balancing act. My current personal work is a project in Scotland looking at land use and protected land. It's in the early stages but I'm keen to continue it in the next few weeks. My main interests are environmental stories and specifically looking at the human and social impact of environmental issues. It's time to give those personal stories some more of my attention now and I'm really looking forward to doing that.