Two Sisters, Falconry and No Audience

Lauren Maccabee's project Young Falconers, published by It's Nice That on 8 July 2026 with text by Olivia Hingley, follows Connie and Elsie, two sisters learning falconry in Dorset under their father's guidance. Their work includes rescuing birds, breeding endangered species and taking part in re-release schemes. Maccabee began from Ken Loach's film Kes and from a question about how male-dominated the practice appeared to be.

She expected unpredictability from the birds and found instead that the girls could almost read each bird's mood, which sets the register of the series: long familiarity rather than action. The second layer is absence. The sisters keep none of this online, and Maccabee found that refreshing, since nothing in the work is performed for an audience. Photographing an activity that has not already been photographed is a different job from reframing one that has.