Take that Santa! This is me upside-down and naked in a fireplace – Brooke DiDonato’s best photograph

‘I wanted to make a perfect square with my body. My back hurt for days afterwards. People often want to know if the kitten is real’

I’ve thought a lot about the time I made this image. In my 20s, I was living in New York. Then I broke up with my long-term partner in 2019 and I sort of didn’t really know how to cope any more. I didn’t feel creative – my whole experience of living in New York was tied to that relationship, and I felt I needed to go somewhere else and start over. I moved to Austin, Texas – I thought I’d give it a go for a bit.

I was doing a lot of tinkering at home, and I started doing a lot more self-portraits and let my psyche run wild. At this point, in 2021, one of my friends, Mike, was living in a 1940s building in East Austin, with old popcorn ceilings, really cool mouldings and outlet covers and original details, including the fireplace. It was inspiring to be there.