Meet the photographer whose Sheffield exhibition wants everyone to talk about death before it's too late

"It's not something we talk about until we absolutely have to - that makes it harder when it does come to your doorstep and invades your very being," says the artist and photographer, looking around the gallery at Weston Park Museum in Sheffield where his exhibition, Loved&Lost, deals with the reality of bereavement and the importance of honouring people's memories.

"I look back at photographs of a few days before my dad died - which was just after Christmas - and he looked so ill and frail, he'd had cancer for a long time. Anyone looking at that now would think 'He's only got moments to live'. Sitting in the front room opening presents as a family, even when it feels inevitable and the medication's stopped working, you still don't think 'He's going to die', even when it's right in front of you. I suppose it's a mechanism to protect yourself. On a cultural and wider societal level, there's more we could do to understand grief. We're all going to die at some point."

The gallery at Weston Park has been turned into a quiet, contemplative space. There are comfortable sofas, and boxes of tissues are placed on tables - a gesture that recognises visitors' emotions may still be raw beneath the surface, sometimes years after a death.

On the walls, nine sets of pictures are displayed with accompanying text. Each set consists of an original image, depicting a person with someone dear to them who has died, and new photographs taken by Simon which involve those still alive restaging their old picture.

It is a simple but powerful concept, and a highly effective means of representing physical loss. One participant shares the story of saying goodbye to her dad, restaging a photograph in a hotel in Scarborough, another returns to the coast in Pembrokeshire to recall summer holidays spent playing on the beach with her son, while a man goes back to Hillsborough's South Stand to watch Sheffield Wednesday for the first time since his dad died, reliving a 20-year routine they kept.

Films telling individual stories are being screened in the gallery, and a book has been produced to document the work.

The exhibition, says Simon, is not about 'inspecting the medium of photography'.

"It's using photography as a way to tell stories. I'm keen to make work that is approachable. My hope is that people who've lost somebody or are bereaved - whether that's last week or 50 years ago - can come, and also people who've never experienced loss can get a glimpse and understand more about what it's like, to increase their empathy. I want my work to try and bring us closer together."

Simon, 32, grew up in Winchester and lives with his wife and daughter near Manchester, where he studied at university and was involved in music before 'taking photography more seriously'.

His mother, Anne, was the first person to be photographed and interviewed. Her husband - Simon's father - Peter died aged 51 in 2009 of prostate cancer; Anne went back to St Giles Hill in Winchester, where she and Peter had a picture taken a few days after they got engaged in 1981.

"It was quite poignant for me to sit there and hear my mum reflecting on her life with my dad, which is different from my life with my dad - how they met, the fact he asked her whether he could propose three times before she said yes," says Simon. "It's the same with everybody. I've tried to offer people a platform."

Participants approached him via a website - after some introductory conversations, he then arranged to see them in order to talk in more depth and take photos.

"The majority are complete strangers to me, or were," he says. "We've had a few emails or a phone call or Skype chat, and then we've met. And yet we can have this amazingly open and strong conversation about the deepest, most painful things. That's partly because there's a trust established through them knowing I've been through a similar experience."

Simon's family was shaken by tragedy again when his sister, Jess, died 18 months ago from a brain tumour aged 29, leaving her husband and their young daughter.

It was, he says, 'really tough', especially so coming after the death of their father.

"For a while I thought I couldn't work on any more stories, and then this opportunity came up in Sheffield and it felt like the right space. I knew they'd do a beautiful job of presenting it."

Sadness does not permeate his photographs - they possess an air of poignancy instead. In many of the images the subjects are smiling.

"Everybody's said what a positive experience it's been to go back to the place and celebrate that person, to say 'This is what they were, and what they meant to me'. People have maybe been surprised about getting a bit emotional, particularly some of the guys. Talking about it isn't always easy. You have to find a way to let it out. Other cultures would have a period of lamenting, or there's more structure around acknowledging a death. That's something we've lost."

The exhibition has previously been staged on a smaller scale in North Wales and Manchester. The expanded show in Sheffield 'feels like a huge achievement', he says.

"I've grown very fond of Sheffield over the last few months. There's a real identity about it. Places like Sheffield and Bristol have a strong political and moral compass - there's a unity and a willingness to stand up as a community. That's something to hold on to."

Simon will be back at Weston Park in February for a 'death café' at the gallery, where visitors can talk about their journeys through grief, and he intends to revisit Loved&Lost in future alongside new work.

"This will be something that doesn't go away, I'll come back to it over time," he says. "It's not going to age."

Loved&Lost is at Weston Park Museum until April 19. Admission is free.