Luke Stephenson first appeared on our radar back in 2005 when he won the Jerwood Prize straight out of university. Since then he has shot prize budgerigars for his Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds project, documented the World Beard and Moustache Championships, tackled Santa impersonators in their grottos, photographed 7122 Corn Flakes in a Box and featured owls in Agi & Sam’s Topman collection.

He recently shot the brilliant ‘For Life Not Landfill’ campaign for Jigsaw and his second book, 99 x 99s, saw Luke driving around the coast of England and Wales in a bedford nipper van documenting and searching for the origins of the iconic and very British 99 ice cream. Luke takes over our Recommends column this morning and explains why a photographer he spotted in Amsterdam last year has made him look at sponges in a completely different way.