Flame-haired defiance by a Belfast mural: Hannah Starkey's best photograph
Belfast was a very patriarchal place, but women always seemed to be the ones making the most sense. If you look at UN statistics for when women are at negotiating tables, the chances of reaching peace agreements are much higher. Then, if they stay at the table, the peace agreement lasts longer. In different parts of the world that I've been commissioned to shoot, like Sudan or Beirut, I've met many different women but they all have the same ability to cut through the shit, yet they're not given any power.
This was taken in 2023 when I was back in Belfast working on a show of 21 portraits for Ulster museum called Principled and Revolutionary: Northern Irish Peace Women. It was to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. I wanted to capture the often untold stories of the women who were influential to peace-building in Northern Ireland, to pay tribute to their work.
While I was there, in my head I was carrying this image with a mural that I kept suppressing, because it's a tourist image in a way. My process is that if I have an idea for a particular female protagonist, I will go into the world and hope our paths will cross. I was in a vintage shop and this girl walked in looking exactly as she looks in the picture. She seemed so strong, so forceful to be going through Belfast dressed like this, and probably putting up with a lot of shit from the street because of it.
I thought: 'You're amazing.' Projecting this hyper-feminised character, she was a real 'Fuck you' to the male violence and oppression. I gave her my card, told her how much she'd get paid, what the picture would be about, and to go home and look me up and think about it. But she said yes right away. The next day, we walked around Belfast and talked about her life, and she was everything that I was projecting on to her. She wasn't afraid of authority, like me when I was young. I think that might be quite a Belfast, Northern-Irish thing.
Eventually, I decided I needed a mural, because the image I wanted to create was about male aggression and control. We went to an area called Sandy Row, which used to be a very Protestant area. The mural was on the wrong side of the street, because I knew I had to point the camera in the direction of those dark skies, with the sunlight and then the seagulls coming from the port that, for me, is Belfast. I knew this was a lucky picture. When you're making a picture, you're hoping the gods of photography are with you. There's a transcendence that happens. I chose the frame that seemed most strident – and then, in Photoshop, I lifted the mural from one side of the street and put it on to the other.
I'm not a documentary photographer. I am interested in cinema and how you elicit emotion. I've always constructed images, to extend the narrative of the picture and remind the viewer that photography is a constructed medium. These pictures are exhibited large on a gallery wall. You can stand and look at all the details, and think about how you have derived meaning from these clues – and see how photography manipulates us.
After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024 is at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh from 21 March until 28 June
Born: Belfast, 1971Trained: Edinburgh Napier University Edinburgh, Royal College of Art London.Influences: 'Women and photography.'High point: 'There have been many. It's always thrilling to see where a photograph can land in the world.'Low point: 'None. There have been no low points as everything connected to photography always has a silver lining.'Top tip: 'You really need to fall in love with photography. Not just use it for fame and fortune. It is a beautiful relationship that needs absolute trust and respect. Then you will find your voice.'
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