I wanted to reveal the souls of these women, and in order to do this the text could not be near the image. This has definitely worked, leaving powerful photographs and a compelling text. I couldn't have asked for better reactions. I might add that this is despite the men's magazines that wanted to publish this work, but at the last minute thought it was too controversial.

Next time you're in Manhattan and in need of a little sustenance, head downtown, for down these mean streets a man must go.

Girls features an exclusively white cast both in terms of its main characters and its peripheral ones, and this has been a source of much condemnation. But instead of criticising Girls and Lena Dunham, its writer, we should really criticise ourselves.

It's big. It's got tall buildings. It speaks French. It has strange red flashing traffic lights that confuse the hell out of us. It's like a cross between a North American city (which it is), a Scottish city like Aberdeen or Edinburgh (which it isn't), and in some strange way (and I'm really gonna get lambasted for this one) - Sydney. Where am I?

I had been counting down the days feverishly for months. It was the last thing I thought of before I went to sleep, and the first thing I thought of when I woke. It consumed me, vigorously updating my statuses as though people actually cared that it was only 142 days, 141 days etc until my first visit to the USA.