Sam Batley: Running Towards Myself

Sam Batley is a photographer making work in Liverpool and Barnsley. He responds to life’s dualities – fear and faith, isolation and loss of purpose to the joys and interconnectedness of community. Navigating the eternal dance that unites them.

Leaning into his lived experience through creative process, engaging in a call and response between the internal and external, Batley’s photography captures the nuanced beauty of the everyday, with a special focus on his relationship with the physical, social and community landscapes of Barnsley and Liverpool.

I started taking photos properly in 2018, the year before me mum bought me a 35mm camera for christmas for sole reason it were made same year I was born. I didn’t take to it initially, in 2017 I was on a year long whim in Berlin. I took some photos but other activities took priority. My time in Berlin came to an end and I ended up back in Goldthorpe at my mum’s again, a familiar pattern had repeated itself.

A pattern of fucking off and ending up back in the place I fucked off from. Goldthorpe’s a village in the Dearne Valley, a collection of former pit villages in the heart of the Yorkshire coal field. Pretty much equidistant between Barnsley and Doncaster. The familiar pattern that repeated was addiction which ran through my life from a teen up to 2019, a big part of my behaviour was doing geographicals.

Getting a Grip

I was always on the bounce, I never put my roots down anywhere. On the last rotation of this cycle I picked up the camera. I was bewildered by never being able to get away, of trying to make a life elsewhere and it always crumbling in the same circumstances.

In hindsight I think I took to camera as a way of processing the loop I was living in. I started to take photos of the lads I knocked about with, the world I couldn’t escape and fleeting moments of solace in the fields of the Dearne. Taking photos properly got a grip of me, I was labouring on a renderer at the time. I’d get dropped off in Leeds after work with 80 quid in my hand. Take my film to Dragon photo on the market and get 4 pints in across road before collecting them. The 6x4s used to be warm straight out the machine, I absolutely loved it.

Photography gave me a connection to something bigger than myself, a feeling I weren’t getting elsewhere, it gave me purpose when I had none. While all my money was going on everything else I still prioritized getting my film done. The thing that started to emerge was this idea that photography is a conversation between the internal and external.

In the years leading to 2019, two notable friendships flourished, lads that are still important influences, collaborators and brothers. That of Harley Roberts and Sean O’Connell both from Barnsley. Harley is a painter, Sean a photographer, Sean was the first person I knew who did photography that properly got me inspired by showing a world I too moved through, he changed what I thought photography was and could be, planting a seed that maybe this was something for me too.

Running Towards Myself

In September 2019 I come to accept I was an alcoholic and needed help. In this acceptance I ended up on the phone to a scouser by the name of PJ Smith who turned out to be one of the most influential men in me life. He and his Mum Jacquie who’s been equally as influential had just opened Damien John Kelly House, a life changing recovery living centre for men, in Liverpool 15. He said there was a bed for me if I come on the following Monday. I did something different that day, instead of running away from myself I ran toward myself.

Damien John Kelly House centres its recovery around the arts, sport and culture, focusing on all aspects of community and doing things together. I started saying yes to life. After thawing out, I started peeling back the layers of insecurities I had formed my identity around in addiction, and began reconnecting to things where I found meaning, bolstered by new recovery values of willingness, open mindedness and honesty.

Damien John Kelly House

I started to engage in photography in a deeper way, being able to apply myself to my interests in a way I’d never known. The community I found myself in was at the heart of this new world of recovery. Naturally I was drawn to this, the men I lived with, the activities we did together and in turn experiencing Liverpool. I started to take a lot of photos, began learning and getting out of my comfort zone.

The ultimate act of getting out of my comfort zone was going to a volunteer event at Open Eye Gallery, I felt super uncomfortable in that kind of space. I challenged that discomfort and was greeted warmly by Natalie Meer and Sorcha Boyle. I was asked if I’d be interested in volunteering myself, I couldn’t believe it. I took form in next day, this started my relationship with the gallery and a whole different world of photographic experience.

I learned as much as I could, usually chewing Declan Connolly’s ear off, my comfort zone got bigger in the process. New inspirations, methods, conversations and possibilities emerged as did my confidence. The view of what was possible grew, the gallery supported this massively.

Together Damien John Kelly House and Open Eye really challenged my view, laying down the next lap of running toward myself by shaping the foundation for my new identity as a man in recovery.

Halfway Point

Early on in recovery I began to experience a very real sense of duality, a before and after moment. One side a belief system tied to addiction on the other a new belief system tied to recovery.

This radical experience of opposites inspires me deeply, photography has served as a tool to understand and navigate the crisscrossing of this boundary line. A way to process the eternal dance of life. Engaging in the photographic process is like pulling on a thread, constantly unraveling and revealing stories. Stories that exist within myself, stories I have learnt/unlearnt and those that exist outside myself in the world.

The more I pull on the thread the more I see, not just visually. Photography allows me to meet myself at the half way point; what I encounter there feelings/doubts/joys/anxieties can be challenged, examined and understood then reapplied into the rest of life. I experience creativity and recovery as being roots of the same tree, roots that continue to deepen the longer I experience.

My relationship to my work is built off this sentiment, I’m very process led in my approach to subjects and themes. It is the act of photography that excites me. The process is the constant of the whole thing, the act of engaging in it.

I always have my camera and do my best to listen to me belly, the part of me that is drawn to whatever is in front of me that feels compelling enough to capture it.

Over time I see the patterns and threads of narrative that reveal themself. When this becomes apparent I dig in deeper and explore the sensations that arise.

I’m fascinated by the idea of emotion in photography and try to create images that convey something other than the subject. My sister Hannah once described them as photos with feelings and I’ll have that.

The Stories Are Already There

Going back to the conversation I referred to earlier. The one between the internal and external. A while back a good mate of mine Toria Garbutt told me “all the best stories are already there, they just need telling”. This is something I hold dear, and what this means to me is that I am the author of my own experience. I cannot tell stories that exist outside of it.

My photography mirrors this, whether it be revisiting the Dearne, family and friendship to exploring masculinity, recovery and the importance of community. The almost universal experience and unassuming beauty of post industrial northern England. With everything in between Liverpool, Hull, Newcastle and London.

I still have the propensity to be on the bounce. All those drivers that got me into taking photos are still there, to make sense of the world, my experience and my emotions. Responding to life’s duality, fear and faith, love and grief, community and isolation, recovery and addiction.

The dance continues camera in hand, the thread off the eternal dancers jumper in the other.

Keep up to date with Sam’s latest work via his Instagram

Published
March 27, 2026