During Melanie Sutton’s first term studying photography at the University of Portsmouth, it hit her that she wasn’t like the other students. “Around Christmas time, people started talking about going home, and earlier they’d been mentioning getting financial support from their families, and things like that. It became very apparent we were not in the same boat,” the 22-year-old says.
Sutton has been estranged from her family since she was 16 and almost didn’t go to university after struggling with her mental health at college. But when the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out her work as a dog walker, she decided to see how far she could take her love of photography. University has been something of a transition, she admits, but she’s been impressed by the level of support that’s been available to her.
