Noemie Goudal studied graphic design and illustration before getting into photography, and perhaps that’s still evident in her work. As this image shows, her speciality is creating fantastical scenarios, part natural and part artificial, which test the viewer’s perceptions. “I wanted to mix the two worlds to see how they interact,” she tells BJP. “I wanted to see how much you can enter either the make believe or the real.”

This image took two days to make, with Goudal and a friend spending hours tweaking the plastic before she finally took the shot. She used a 5×4 camera to allow her to print big, creating a 1.4×1.1m image to envelop the viewer in another reality. It was painstaking to create, but she doesn’t mind – otherwise she finds photography can be disconcertingly quick.

But finding the time to make this kind of work proved difficult, which is why she signed up for an MA on the prestigious Royal College of Art course two years ago. This image is from her final exhibition, the RCA’s Show One open until 06 June. “I was very attracted to the whole set up [at the RCA],” she says. “

Goudal took her BA at Central St Martins, working for The Guardian, The Telegraph, *Wallpaper and more before devoting herself to her postgraduate studies. Now that she’s finished she hopes to continue in fine art, though she admits to some nerves about what the future will bring. Hopefully the camaraderie of her college years will see her through – she’s got together with nine other students to form the Hal Silver collective, and together they’ve hired a studio in The Woodmill, south London.