I met Natalie for the first time round her apartment, when I went back home for reading week in February. She is so lovely and had a great relaxed personality. We sat on two armchairs next to the window, where the light shone in beautifully on a lovely sunny day. After a little chat I pressed record on my phone and the questions began.
What inspired you to pick up a camera and begin your career ?
I think I have always liked photography, since I was young I can remember liking it. I did well at it at school so that pushed me, and then I went to study it at University, and whilst I was at University I never thought I would actually become a photographer because it just seemed like too much of a competitive area but I thought I would work somewhere in the photography or magazine environment and then I did start to work for the a magazine which then pushed me into becoming a photographer.
2. Do you have a personal favourite photographer/ photograph ?
I wouldn’t say I have one all-time favourite photographer but because I have worked in a few different photography areas I think my favourites change, depending on what I’m focusing on at the time and when I was doing a lot of sports photography and mainly snowboarding I really loved the work of Danny Zapalac and a chap called Vincent Skoglund – they have amazing work and now that I’m starting to do more weddings and portraiture I’ve been looking at people that are working more in that area and at the moment I love Sally Man and a chap called Jock Sturges.
3. I notice you have used a quote from Diane Arbus on your website, do you think she’s had any influence in any of your work ?
It says “I don’t like to re-arrange people, so I re-arrange myself”, or something like that. I like her work because she photographed a lot of people but she did it in a really natural way and I like the fact that her people don’t look posed and that she puts herself out before putting them out, to get what she wants – I like that. I’ve only really started looking at her stuff quite recently so I’d say no. But I would say that other people like Derek Greensfield and Sally Man have been an influence.
4. What was your first camera ? and what is your favourite now ?
I had a Pentax K-1000 as my first camera and then I moved onto Canon camera’s and I think my first one was a 300D and now I use a 1D canon and that EOS Canon range is good in a really practical way, and I’d loved to go more into medium format and back to film again one day but I havn’t quite found the time to do that yet. I clung to film when the changeover to digital was happening but as soon as I started going on digital I found all the magazines I submitted to clearly wanted only digital images because it is a lot more practical than film.
5. How did you get started with wedding photography ?
That was because I was working professionally as a winter sports photographer, I worked for a snowboarding magazine and I was thinking that I’d had enough of the travel and I planned spending more time back in Jersey and obviously to do that snowboarding had to be abroad and so I was wondering what I could do in Jersey, photography wise and weddings was actually the last thing I wanted to do because they have a bit of a bad reputation with the kind of photography that comes from weddings as it’s often a bit staged and a bit horrible, but my friend asked me to shoot her wedding and I actually did it and I actually liked doing it so I started doing more of that.
6. How do you photograph a wedding ?
Yes, I am quite quiet about it and I just try and watch what’s going on and watch people. I focus in on, you know you have the main people you’re obviously photographing for the bride and groom because they want lots of shots of themselves and they also want their friends and family so you just watch people and look for their good sides, try and catch them when they’re happy and I try to keep very quiet and I don’t manipulate people, I don’t get them to do anything for me.
7. After looking through several of your albums, I notice that each image contains a very personal moment with the people involved and I love how you capture that moment and as I can get quite emotional I think I would struggle to stay dry eyed – How do you stay professional whilst photographing such a big day for those two people ?
When you’re photographing somebody else’s event you don’t be conspicuous in any way, so I try not to although I do actually feel some emotion sometimes, sometimes I feel like I might have a little cry but I just wouldn’t let anybody see that because it’s got to be about them, you don’t want anyone to turn around and look at you or to even notice you in any way really, apart from the fact that you seem to be working hard in the background, so I just kind of try and not make it about myself.
8. Do you have a favourite place to photograph ?
Yes, I’ve got a few favourite places basically anywhere which is within the arctic circle or quite near the arctic circle because there is this amazing light up there which is to do with the amount of U.V light which is in the atmosphere and up in that area of the earth there isn’t really any U.V light and this light is what causes the kind of haze when you look into the distance and because there isn’t any U.V light, everything is just crystal clear and beautiful and then you have amazing sunsets and sunrises and then sometimes if you go in the summer months, the night doesn’t really start, the sun just dips down at maybe around 2 o’clock in the morning the sun will set and then it rises again 5 minutes later so you don’t really get a proper night, you just get a beautiful red sky for a long time so it’s amazing to be there, it makes everything quite special to photograph.
9. How far have you travelled for photography ? Is there somewhere you would like to travel to for work ?
I’ve been, recently for my snowboarding photography I went very far. I’ve been to New Zealand, Chilli and Japan, Iceland, Canada I always would have loved to have gone to Alaska because that was the ultimate destination for snowboarding but I never went, we always planned a trip them but it never quite came off it’s feet, so that’s somewhere I would like to go in the future and I’d also like to go to more hot places for my work because I have been to loads of snowy ones, but I’d have to obviously have to start doing a different kind of travel photography for that, so that’s something for the future because I’m based here now.
10. What is the best piece of advice you have been given ?
Somebody once said very simply that photography is just about the understanding of light and I felt that that summed it up really. You just have to understand light and hopefully it becomes very simplified.
11. Did you go to college to study photography ?
I did it as GCSE whilst I was doing my A-level’s and then I went to University but I actually started on a Media degree, with a bit of Photography in it because my dad told me I had to do something which had something theoretical in it and not just a purely practical degree, which I think actually was a bad advice as perhaps he didn’t understand that area and so in the second year I changed purely to Photography and I was a lot happier.
12. What has been your most memorable assignment ? and Why ?
Photographing in Japan was amazing because it’s the only place I’ve ever been where I got a genuine culture shock and especially once you get out of the main centre and try and travel anywhere by yourself, everything is just so different and even trying to find a little bit of food to eat I couldn’t recognise any food, nothing and I’ve eaten Japanese food before but the Japanese food in Japan is just so different and I tried to get directions from people and they have this strange thing in their culture where they don’t like to say no and so they just say yes but they don’t actually know what you’re saying so it’s really bazar so it just makes it really confusing, but fun at the same time.
13. If you were not out taking amazing photographs, what would you be doing instead ?
Working in finance in Jersey! … not. I’ve never considered actually any other kind of career, because ever since university It’s just kind of lead me in this direction towards photography, so I’d hope if I wasn’t doing photography I’d be working for myself and apart from that I don’t know what else I would be doing.
14Is there any advice you would give to young photographers such as myself who are just starting out ?
Yes I think you should take every opportunity to do work experience that comes your way and anywhere that you think you like the look of, like you like that BBC Wildlife magazine, get in contact with them and send them a really good, make it a beautiful C.V and choose say 5 of your favourite shots and write them a lovely letter, and keep badgering them and just make sure that you present yourself really well because when someone looks at it they’ll think “Oh, this girl really stands out from the crowd”, because they’ll obviously be getting sent lots of stuff from people, you don’t have to have the most amazing photography but you have to seem intelligent and show that you know how to present yourself, then you’ll come across as someone they’d want to work with and I think that work experience is the only way you can progress in photography, especially in interesting areas like that.
