To be shot by Campbell Addy “is to feel seen” is how supermodel Naomi Campbell once described working with the British-Ghanaian fashion photographer, filmmaker and artist who is the star of this year’s Ballarat International Foto Biennale. “When Campbell photographed me, I realised it was the first time I had been shot by a photographer of my own colour in an editorial.”

Since seemingly rocketing out of nowhere a few years ago, shooting covers for Vogue, Harpers, Dazed, and Rolling Stone, along with celebrity portraits of Beyoncé, Zoe Kravitz, FKA Twigs and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, 32-year-old Addy has become known for shooting powerful photographs of black people. His images have none of the “otherness” white photographers are assumed to unconsciously infuse in their images when photographing the same subjects.

“Campbell’s imagery … [crosses] the boundaries of race, gender, ethnicity and nationality,” wrote fellow Ghanaian and former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful. Campbell, he said, was at the forefront in championing diversity and inclusivity in the fashion industry. His impact stretches beyond fashion. Reflecting on the significance of his portrait of Meghan, shot in 2022, Addy says: “I think we both understood the gravitas. A black royal, shot by a black British photographer; a very interesting moment in history.”

Addy, who was brought up by his Jehovah’s Witness mother in London, once famously declared: “I am Black, I am Queer, I am Religious.” His historic success is pegged to a backstory of oscillating awful and joyful memories, from his spartan childhood as a Jehovah’s Witness, rejection by his mother and brother when he came out as queer, a period of frightening homelessness in his teens and, in the middle of that, admission into London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins college.

Later, as his star shot higher than he ever imagined, a mental health crisis involving handcuffs and weeks in a New York hospital crashed his confidence again. When he returned to work, gushing media reviews for his first solo show refuelled him: “No young photographer has done more to reshape the industry and promote representation,” said one critic; “Campbell Addy is a fearless advocate for change,” wrote another.

Addy’s survival and the tender, rather sweet, identity he salvaged from it all, resonate in his social life, work circles, and every one of his images.

I meet the immaculately cool Addy with a small entourage of his creative mates, including set designer Ibby Njoya, over a noisy breakfast (his choice; Vegemite and avocado toast; “I’m very sensitive to textures in food”) in a fancy-ish cafe below Melbourne’s Sofitel Hotel.

Njoya and Addy banter through an hour of thought bubbles: creativity, collaboration, friendship, audacity (and how it underpins everything they do), social media, the difference between Marmite and Vegemite. They’re off later to scope the elegant Victorian architecture of Ballarat’s Mining Exchange building, venue for Addy’s Foto Biennale exhibition later this year.

The show will be largely a reprise of his first solo exhibition, I (heart) Campbell, held in June 2023 at London’s 180 Studios, and also designed by Njoya. A confronting self-portrait Addy painted of his own mental breakdown was a swivel point in the exhibition, along with a deliciously whimsical video he shot in Ghana – Decolonise my tongue with love – showing the smiles, oofs, rolling eyes and giggles of random people remembering their first love.

One of his most powerful works is a tortuously composed Ghanian flag, its central black star replaced by a man curled into the foetal position.

“I had this idea germinating for years,” Addy says. “Then when they tried to pass the anti-LGBT bill in Ghana, the ingredients all came together.” The proposed law, which would set three-year jail terms for people who identify as gay or trans, and up to 10 years for anyone who promotes LGBT activities, has faced various hurdles, but is currently under consideration as a private member’s bill.

“The black star on the flag is me,” Addy says. “We are the stars of Ghana, aren’t we? Yet you want to hurt me, you want to legalise me out of existence? You don’t have to be gay to understand this is an anti-human rights law.”

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In creating the image, Addy called on a collection of the people who are central to his life and work. Scattered across Britain, Africa and Europe, they’re mostly youngish creative professionals like him and Njoya; very arty, like-minded, analytical, apt to channel ideas, as they do now, into a soupy, soul-feeding stream of consciousness. “We’re all like curious children,” Addy says. “People often don’t realise we’re friends, because we work together so well too.”

In November 2017, barely out of Central Saint Martins and already clocking a manic workload, he also felt the lifesaving power of his chosen community. “They warned me: ‘Campbell, you’re going to break if you don’t stop’,” he recalls. “I didn’t understand; it was; ‘I’ve gotta do this, I’ve gotta do that’. But we were all young, still in our 20s and I didn’t know. But the body knows. You need to sleep more than one hour a day.”

When Addy finally broke, he realised what they meant. During two weeks in a psychiatric hospital, his mental axis shifted. “It was so scary but it forced me to realise the world won’t end if you slow down; it will if you die.” He says he’ll never work or live again without leaning into his kind, chaotic and wildly creative family of friends.

Most of the time, he says, they just chill: “Thinking and talking and throwing stuff around”. They dance, wrangle politics, religion, random ideas and all the dumb, breeze-shooting rumination of daily life (“Check out this gym/restaurant/gallery/club/podcast/theory of art/design/work-life balance…”) Their babble may or may not be incorporated one day in a new photo commission, or an historic artwork, or … something.

Addy’s collaborative work style is a merged version of his life outside it. “A lot of ideas actually never reach this plane, or they live in a dream space,” he says. “Or there’s something that happens, maybe it’s a year or two years later.

“When you’re shooting, it’s almost like a dance,” he says, finishing his Vegemite toast. “Like a dance between souls. Sometimes, that dance isn’t smooth, sometimes it’s spiky, sometimes it’s hot, sometimes I need to stand on the other side of the room to take your picture because you can’t handle me so close.”

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale runs August 23 to October 19; ballaratfoto.org