With the average life expectancy in the UK being about 81, turning 40 carries more weight than previous milestones. Its approach prompts reflection on all aspects of life, whether that’s career, partner, parenthood, impending menopause, financial planning, health and wellbeing. For her project Fortyfied, the photographer Louise Haywood-Schiefer photographed and interviewed friends and strangers across the UK
In my 40th year, full of contemplations about this age, I went on a quest to find 40 others born in the same year as me to discover how they were feeling about it. I photographed friends and reached out to complete strangers from different parts of the UK and beyond.
We have a shared bond of growing up as older millennials, having lived out our childhoods pre-internet and with similar cultural references, yet each with divergent backgrounds and life experiences. In the process of finding them and listening to their insights, I discovered more about myself.
