photographed with fists defiantly clenched and make-up streaming down her face.

"The crying shot is very much how it feels internally for me," says the 42-year-old. "That's what it's like inside my head.

"I've hidden that part of myself from everybody all these years so people have felt quite shocked by that image.

"But at the same time, they know I'm protecting and hiding things from them, and they've come to understand that's what it's like for me in reality."

The defiance, strength and vitality on show are striking - perhaps because we are more used to the stereotypical image of the cancer 'victim'.

"That was a surprise to me," says Rankin. "So many people look really healthy who are really, really ill.

In Alive: In The Face Of Death, photographer Rankin set out to explore and challenge our perceptions of death. Through his lens, the stories of those touched by death are revealed. They included people living with a terminal illness, those who have faced death and survived, and those who work within the death industry.

In this time period, not many people would have seen these sort of landscapes so Ansel was giving other people an insight into the world that he sees by capturing there images. The image is captured in black and white as his preferred method and is landscape. I think this was the best outcome of the photo because you can see more of the mountainous range which gives a better image and you can see all of the snow on top of the mountains because it is black and white which makes it stand out more.