Midsummer morris dancers and their mysterious goat Caprihorn: Hollie Fernando’s best portrait

‘I wanted to celebrate the women who are reinventing morris dancing. They took me to a pub and gave me a pickled egg mashed up in a packet of crisps. I felt like I’d entered a magical world’

Morris used to be a very male-dominated sport, but in 1975 the Morris Federation was created specifically to allow women to join sides. An older organisation, the Morris Ring, didn’t allow teams with women to be members until 2018, yet today women account for more than half of Britain’s Morris dancers. As soon as I heard about Boss Morris, the all-female side in this picture, I wanted to shoot a portrait of them. I was keen to celebrate the evolution of this traditional form of dance by focusing on young women who are both honouring and reinventing it.

When they appeared on stage at the Brits with the band Wet Leg, who I was working with at the time, I thought, “It’s meant to be! If I don’t do it now, someone else will.” It was really hard to pin the group down, as there are so many of them, but as we discussed ideas they all got excited by the idea of doing a summer solstice shoot on Rodborough Common during one of their practice evenings. It’s a great location – an amazing hilly green space right on their doorstep in Stroud.
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