Hardy and Free was a major outdoor photography exhibition celebrating the connections between the magnificent landscapes of Yorkshire and 12 extraordinary local women.

Carolyn Mendelsohn, a Bradford-based photographer, set out in 2023 to explore the links between the natural world and women in Yorkshire: farmers, artists, swimmers, athletes, gardeners and more. Her subjects are diverse in background and age, but they all share a profound emotional link with the landscapes that define our part of the world – from remote moorlands to urban parks, waterfalls to working farms.

Hardy and Free was originally commissioned in 2023 by the Brontë Parsonage Museum, inspired by the Brontës’ own relationship with the land around Haworth. Two years later, Carolyn expanded the project for Bradford 2025 with new photographs – all printed to huge scale and presented on the exterior of the Kirkgate Shopping Centre.

The result is a powerful reflection on place, identity and creativity – inviting us to consider how the landscapes around us shape who we are, and how we find our place within them.

See all of the Hardy and Free portraits and hear each woman’s story below.

Carolyn Mendelsohn is an artist and portrait photographer whose practice is rooted in telling stories and amplifying quieter voices through co-produced portraits.

Her portrait work has been selected, collected and exhibited at Impressions Gallery, the National Science and Media Museum, Imperial War Museums, Open Eye Liverpool, Portcullis House, the Royal Albert Hall, Galerie Huit Arles and UNESCO in Paris, and published by the likes of the BBC, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Le Monde and the British Journal of Photography.

Carolyn is Artist in Residence for Born in Bradford, an Ambassador for Nikon Europe and the Royal Photographic Society, and Patron of Photo North.