I've owned a camera since the age of eight and am almost never without one. When I go out photographing, I don’t always have a set idea of what I want to photograph. Sometimes I like to just explore, to be inspired by my surroundings, to let things catch my eye. It’s more of a reactive process and can be extremely therapeutic and rewarding – a great counterbalance to the stresses of modern life. My aim is to find beauty in my surroundings, to discover shapes and patterns, to try and make sense of the world around me, and to solidify that idea in a visual manner. Of course, the idea of ‘beauty’ is subjective, but I know what I am instinctively drawn to, and I prefer to make images which are, for me, uplifting rather than confrontational.

The majority of my images are in colour, as colour is very important to me in the way that it creates mood and feeling in my work, but I occasionally dabble in monochrome. Lately, I've been drawn to making more abstract images and I’m constantly tempted to return to painting...

I currently use a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera. I sometimes use a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 and, failing that, my mobile phone (with its rubbish camera) – it’s better than nothing!

Annabel Glauser