“I like work that is confusing to look at,” says Alma Haser, a recent graduate from Nottingham Trent University, who cites Tim Walker and Tom Hunter among her influences. “If I’m intrigued and want to know more about it, then I think it has accomplished exactly what it was trying to achieve.”

Her own work is largely narrative based, and her latest series created for her graduation show, Paper, centres around scenarios that recall sometimes cataclysmic events from past lives, presented with enigmatic texts. In Paper Planes, for example, her character Poppy has a fear of flying. “When she was five she witnessed a plane crash,” the text explains. “She has been folding paper planes and flying them into the open fire periodically ever since.”

In another image, 21-year-old insomniac Duane has read that if he makes a thousand origami cranes, it will help him overcome his sleep problems, while Vivien recalls her exotic adventures travelling the world as a ship captain’s mistress. The stories are adapted from tales she come across in books and films, and her models are friends and family, who also provide the setting. The character in Paper Parrots, for example, is an art critic, and his house, full of interesting objects he’s collected over a lifetime, provided an ideal backdrop.

Haser is blessed in the sense that both her parents are artists, and have many such unusual friends. In fact, it was her mother who introduced her to photography. “She took my brother and I around the world when I was 13. We lived in the Cook Islands for six months, where my mother experimented with pinhole photography. I was often her model, and I became fascinated by the images appearing on the paper in front of my eyes.” After studying at Wiltshire College near where she grew up, she went on to Nottingham Trent University to continue her passion for photography, and is one of hundreds of students showing work at this month’s Freerange shows in east London.

“I suppose the most important thing I have learnt is that being a photographer is not just about making the image. There is so much more involved to getting your work seen and appreciated. I have learnt that writing well about my work is almost as important as the image making itself. I have met many established photographers through the course and I have learnt that it is about who you know and how you work within the system that will make the difference after college.”

Alma Haser is showing as part of Freerange from 17-21 June in east London.