‘I don’t know…’ I’m positive Chris would rather deal with weighty academic requests than vague curiosity from a teenager. ‘We’ve been introduced to some photographers at school, but they’re all the famous ones. I guess…I want to see photos of someone who looks like me,’ I say. ‘Or a lot of different types of people, actually.’

Chris claps their hands. ‘This is the best enquiry I’ve had all day. Come.’

They march me to the Arts Reading Room and load me up with books from the photography section.

‘I’ll give you too many options, then you’re more likely to find something that resonates.’

Chris helps me lug the books to a table and then leaves me alone. I want to thank them for taking me seriously, but the words get stuck and they’re gone before I can say it.

The array of art books is mind boggling. Most are related to exhibitions that have happened all over the world, so it’s like taking a round-the-world trip in an hour.

A book about masquerade and self-portraiture and constructing different selves. A catalogue from the Lagos Photo Festival. Collections of found photographs from India. A coffee-table book about female Chinese artists. Gender performance in photography.

Some photos are posed and almost look like movie stills, some are so casual they seem like accidents. I think my photo of Natalia falls somewhere between the two, and I wish I’d thought more intentionally about that before taking it.

I spend some time on a monograph of Tracey Moffatt’s work. I’ve seen her photographs before, but only one or two at a time. And there’s something different about seeing the image on a page, running my fingers over the coloured paper, more alive and tangible than looking at photos on a screen. Her photos are carefully staged and full of symbolism.

I pause at one of her most famous images: Moffatt dressed in a cheongsam, looking expectant and wistful in front of a falling-down shack. There’s a brassy blonde woman in the doorway, a sweaty guy drinking inside, a pair of blurry kids and a young Chinese man in a traditional conical hat outside. The landscape is red and hot and dusty, and obviously fake.

I wonder about where the Chinese elements fit in with Moffatt’s Aboriginal heritage, but I don’t know enough about her to figure it out. She’s saying something important, though, it radiates off the page. The photo uses stereotypes and stock characters, but the effect is mysterious and the colours glow and Moffatt looks in control of the whole thing.

I turn next to the book about Chinese female artists, called Half the Sky. Brave women who worked in private without acclaim, who made large-scale ink works, who shocked everyone by shooting their own artwork with real bullets at an exhibition opening.