Fiona Bowring, Ruth Davis, Diff Doctor (PEOPLE 2022)

This picture of Ruth is part of a series of portraits I’ve made of women at work in Fyshwick, Canberra’s industrial heart. Ruth has worked at the Diff Doctor for about 23 years. She works there with her partner. It hasn’t been easy for her to find acceptance amongst in the mechanical field , and she says ‘I used to get laughed at a lot, which is pretty standard behaviour’. Ruth loves the people she meets at work, and she’s busy. ‘I don’t have time to look beautiful all the time’. She uses the razor blade to remove metal splinters from her hands, a casualty of the difficult job she does.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.