Freeland grew up in Cambridge, alongside two older sisters and a brother. "I was very influenced and inspired by my siblings growing up," she says. "My sister is an artist and when I was little, she would run art classes for children from the shed in our garden. I spent my summers doing these with her, making large sculptures and learning to paint and draw." She first experimented with photography when she was around 9 years old. Her brother had turned his bedroom into a darkroom. "We’d process our film in my parents' wardrobe, crouched in the dark," she remembers warmly. Her sister also encouraged her to express how she was feeling in drawings and so she poured any frustration or upset into things she could make with her hands. "This way of working with my emotions had a profound impact on how I learned to use photography to navigate my experiences in life," she says. Later on, Freeland fell ill with Lyme disease . It lasted for five years, leading to an incredibly isolated and introverted period of her life. Those early life lessons became more important than ever. "I’ve since continued to use photography in this way, but learned to do so with more awareness."