In April 2024, off the back of a hectic February and March, Nicklin suddenly found his work had dried up. These periods are challenging for everyone, but for Nicklin there’s a known and specific mental struggle too. “I have to keep busy, if I don’t my bipolar gets pretty awful, so I just have to,” he says. “The contrast made me itchy so I found I was trying to think about something to do. I’d always wanted to do still life, it was a form I’d fallen for as an illustrator. I figured I’d apply it to photography.”
Sourcing the subjects wasn’t a problem. “I’ve always collected things, since I was very young. There’s hoarding tendencies in my family, so maybe it came from there but I just liked having something I could take around with me,” he says. This habit never stopped, and led to a small box of small things, and now a larger box of small things. Hundreds of things: ashtrays, lego men, rings, desk clocks.