When she was a child, Lisa Reed Sheckles remembers going to her grandmother’s house, where an old cast-iron skillet was always on the stove.
“She would be in the kitchen, and we would come by after school,” Sheckles said. “She always had a snack for us.”
Kim Grant is one of the featured speakers at The Photography & Video Show, taking place March 16-19 at the NEC in Birmingham England.
For Kim Grant, there’s no place like home. The nurse turned landscape photographer lives in a seaside village on the scenic Moray coast in northeast Scotland. There is a calming assurance in her voice that is both clear and rhythmical, a reflection, I think, of life’s gentle pace in her home surroundings: she looks and sounds relaxed.
“Have you been out this morning?” I ask when we both get our video link up and running. “For a walk, yes, but not with the camera,” she replies. Except for five years in Aberdeenshire, Kim has lived all her life in Moray and recently returned to her home village of Burghead.
Her affection for the place runs deep: “It’s a wonderful place to live and to do photography because you’ve got it all here, the seaside and woodlands, farmland and rivers. You’ve got everything really, apart from mountains, but I’m not really into mountain photography.”
And yet, this summer Kim surprised thousands of followers on her YouTube channel by announcing that she had fallen out of love with traditional landscape photography. More than that, she added: “If I’m completely honest, I find it boring now.”
However, she continues to see herself as a landscape photographer; the difference is that Kim’s new work is more intricate, less obvious, and triggered by an emotional connection to her subject rather than a snap response to a spectacular view. But to fall out of love with traditional landscape photography means she must have been in love to begin with, so I start by asking her the obvious question…
Kim is a landscape and nature photographer and online presenter who inspires others to connect with the natural world through the art of photography. After growing up in northeast Scotland, she worked as an NHS nurse before deciding to turn her photography hobby into a profession.
Today, Kim dedicates her life to finding new ways to connect with nature using her camera and sharing the positive benefits this can bring to our wellbeing. She shares her insights and inspiring stories for free on her Visualising Scotland YouTube channel and weekly Photographic Connections podcast.
A Nikon Creator and NiSi UK brand ambassador, she offers an online members community, in-person photography workshops and online one-to-one tuition.
When I was a teenager, I used to go down to the beach a lot here and watch the sunset and, one day, I was seeing the beauty of it and I thought I’d love to do more with this. That’s what enticed me to buy my first camera and so I began by just photographing sunsets on the local beach. That’s what made me fall in love with landscape photography, and then I would travel a fair bit round Scotland trying to shoot iconic places, but it never did it for me.
It’s taken me a number of years to find my voice as a photographer and try all of these traditional things and go to all the places that we’re told are good for landscapes, but there was always something missing for me. Now that I’m going into the more intricate, detailed, abstract and macro stuff, I’m finding that it speaks far more deeply to me.
Yeah, and I felt that you were always chasing stuff: you were chasing the images, chasing the locations, chasing the light. For me, photography is an immersive experience and it was about those emotional connections to the sunsets. I was sitting and watching the sunset for a good hour or so and not running around frantically like people do in traditional landscape photography, when you get that window of incredible light and try so hard to photograph it. It’s been done so much as well; we’ve seen the same locations, the same pictures, over and over again.
My first ever camera was a tiny little point-and-shoot thing, I can’t remember what it was, but the first DSLR I got, when I was 16, was a Nikon. I’ve always used Nikon cameras, I’ve never used any other brand of camera.
Yes, I used to use the 24-70mm type lenses a lot for traditional landscape images, whereas now I’m using my telephoto, my 100-400mm, and I zoom into clouds and aspects of nature, such as leaves, and isolate things within the scene rather than photographing the whole vista. I’m using my macro lens a lot as well to focus in more on the details to highlight what I’m seeing in the landscape.
I love my 24-200mm because it’s so versatile and it’s lightweight, so I take that around with me a lot, particularly when I’m shooting handheld with not a lot of other equipment. So, I’m moving away from that wide-angle range and moving more into lenses that let me zoom into nature and get closer.
Yes. I realize that when we put expectations on ourselves we envisage a certain image or a certain condition and it doesn’t happen, which leads to disappointment. Now, I like to go out and respond to whatever happens. In that example, I have always been drawn to the shimmering light on water on sunny days, and when I was filming that video, the autofocus accidentally ended up going out of focus and all this water had these orbs dotted around.
I thought, ‘Whoa! That looks so interesting.’ Then I wondered if I could make this into a photograph, trying to get a very fast shutter speed to freeze those little dancing orbs and get an interesting composition of them as well, because the light was changing constantly and they were jumping all over the place. So, it wasn’t planned at all, very spontaneous and it was an accidental mistake – just my camera going out of focus. I had never thought to photograph that way.
This is one of the joys of getting into the more intricate stuff because a lot of landscape photographers say they hate the summer because sunrise is too early, sunset is too late, the light’s too harsh. But when you’re out in the summer and you’re focusing more on the details and zooming in, it’s about embracing the seasons.
So, what color is there, what opportunities are there, and getting away from the planning and instead just thinking, ‘I’ve got a free morning, let’s go out with the camera’, and reacting to whatever’s there. It goes back to not going out with any preconceived ideas or expectations. That’s how I’m adapting to the seasons: let’s just go out and see what’s there and respond to the moment.
I don’t. I’ve realized throughout my whole journey that it’s always been my local area that I felt most connected to and that I’ve produced my personal favourite images. They’ve never been when I’ve been travelling around the country. I’m lucky to live in a part of the world that’s got coast and woodlands, which are the environments that I’m most drawn to.
It comes back to that connection with your local area – if you love it, you have a deep connection to it, an emotional connection. If I was to go somewhere else now, I would want to ensure that I was there for at least one week, in a single spot, not travelling around, just to build up that connection before I created any images.
A few years ago, I started a project to travel around Scotland photographing all the lighthouses. And then, of course, the pandemic happened and we weren’t able to travel, and through that period I realized that my connection lay in my local area. Being brought up in Burghead, I used to sit on the beach and after the sun had set and watch Tarbat Ness lighthouse flashing back. It was always a beacon of hope for me. I still have a deep connection with lighthouses and I’ve always said that would be a lifelong project. At the moment, it’s on hold, but I’m sure I’ll pick that up again in the future.
Not at all, although I knew from day one that I had a deep connection with photography. I felt like a creative child, I was very much interested in art and writing, but I never anticipated making this into anything that I would devote my life to. At that point, I was still at school and I was studying for my higher exams. When I was 18, I went to university and trained to be a nurse, and then I worked as a nurse until I was 24, so I guess I envisaged myself working as a nurse for my whole life. My backup plan was to go into psychology and become a therapist of sorts.
Photography ran through everything and when I was stressed with my nursing job, on every day off that I wasn’t tired and on every holiday I had, I would be out with my camera. I’d be chasing the Northern Lights, I’d be travelling around, I’d be doing photography. I realized that I really wanted to be outside, but I never in a million years thought that I’d be self-employed and doing any of this. I’ve got no business experience, no family business experience, nothing. It all happened quite naturally. It was never my intention.
A hundred percent. When I got into photography when I was watching those sunsets, I was severely depressed and anxious at the time, and they were the only thing that gave me hope for the future, and then photography gave me an outlet for my emotions. I noticed that when I was doing photography and connecting with the sunset that I forgot about everything else that was going on. It was like a release. It was always like that throughout my nursing career, it was like my de-stress time, out with my camera.
I’m realizing now that it’s in my photography vision for others: what can I do with my photography to help other people? That’s what I’m going back to now, it’s like this well-being, healthcare perspective is coming into my photography and I’m beginning to learn more about the therapeutic aspects of photography and art and nature.
Yeah, but it’s not something I think about that much, to be honest. I think I was just fortunate to start at the right time. I began about six years ago and it was just another creative outlet for me. It began with me documenting my travels around Scotland, and then it evolved into a photography channel and I was known as the woman that travelled around Scotland doing photography.
When I began, there were hardly any Scottish people who were tuned into YouTube, and there were very few other females producing landscape photography. Thankfully there are a few more now. The great thing about YouTube is that you see people evolve over the years and change direction and go on to discover themselves, which is quite exciting.
It’s funny, the more you evolve, the more you do with your videos, so I don’t feel like my workflow is getting any quicker! I’m just learning how to make them a bit more professional and think more about how I do things. I try to produce a video every week and I release it every Sunday.
YouTube is great because it’s where you find your audience and where you build that connection. People want inspiration every week, so if I can give them inspiration every week they can look forward to Sundays, and if they want someone else’s story I have a podcast every Monday. That’s my only routine in my work: one weekly video, one weekly podcast and everything else is fitted around it.
I’ve got the Nikon Z7 II and I’ve got the Z6. I tend to film most of my video on the Z6 and do most of my photography on the Z7 II. Sometimes, I’ll swap around depending on how I’m filming and what lenses are where, but 90 percent of the time the Z7 II is what I do my photography on.
I think it’s because the Z7 II is a more advanced camera and I prefer to use that for the photography. There are a few extra things that it does and there are a few things that they’ve rectified in the second model. It’s the higher quality one that I use for the photography and the video can be filmed easily on the Z6 because I don’t have to think too much about that and how it’s set up.
I take both cameras with me but it depends what I’m doing, where I’m going and how I’m getting there. I’ll always have my 24-200mm lens on my filming camera, and then sometimes if I’m envisaging just doing macro, I’ll just take my macro lens, but because I have the 24-200mm with me, and if something else appears, it means I can photograph it.
In terms of taking my big 100-400mm telephoto, if I’m walking far I won’t take it because it’s so heavy, but if I’m driving to the coast then I’ll usually have it with me because if there’s vast expanses I can just zoom in. Also, for wildlife photography it will always be with me because it’s my longest focal length.
I’ve always been interested in everything outdoors, so I began with landscapes and then dabbled with astro because up here is so good for the Northern Lights. Then I began going to a few hides around Scotland and photographing red squirrels and pine martens. This was a couple of years after getting into photography, but now the only wildlife photography I do is in the summer. I love going to the coast for the seabirds. When the traditional photography doesn’t work in the summer, photographing seabirds is an amazing alternative.
I can walk to the woodland from my house, which I’ve never been able to do before. I’m really looking forward to that, just going out and seeing what happens and what I can find. It’s a beautiful time of year.
What I speak about with people is realizing that there are photographic opportunities everywhere.
Photograph what you feel drawn to and don’t get overwhelmed with the technicalities. If you’re picking up photography at a young age, there’s a reason for it. I started as it was an emotional release, I saw beauty and wanted to connect with it.
This interview first appeared in N-Photo magazine. Scarlet is a headline speaker at The Photography & Video Show. You can find out about his talks at the Show website, and you can get 20% off tickets with our exclusive discount code.
You might be interested in the best Nikon cameras along with the best Nikon lenses – and particularly the best Nikon Z lenses designed for its mirrorless cameras.
We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy—Desmond Tutu, Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World Fragility—vulnerability, resilience in despair, gratitude in the revelations of the universe, and experiences that humble you to the core are often testament to the purest form of joy. Joy can mean different things to different people and reveal itself in hundreds of different ways, if only we took a mere glance at the world beyond ourselves. At a time when little seems to be merry, understanding joy, seeking it and capturing its sparse moments can be arduous at best. Despite it all, and perhaps because of it, we keep going back to those snapshots that are an ode to glimmers of joy in our day-to-day life, hope in spaces that lack it and those that make us feel the most alive. We turned to five photographers, each one distinct from the other in style, story, and perspective, who spoke about what is joy to them, how they capture it, and their experiences of finding it in spaces that are amiss of it.
ROHAN SHRESTHA
He’s the starry-eyed Bandra boy who paid homage to the dreams of a 20-something photographer and a forever Barca fan when he did a shoot with Lionel Messi a year ago. He seeks joy in life’s most humbling experiences, and is happiest when shooting outdoors.
“Most likely, photographers are introverted, that’s why they’re sitting in the darkness behind the camera and we look at life through a more voyeuristic perspective. A lot of times I feel that photographers are often very hard on themselves. So, when you do capture a moment that you are proud of, which are really far and few, you feel an immense amount of joy. Perhaps one of my all-time favourite moments was when I did a shoot with Messi. When I took up the camera in 2008, I hoped someday I would get to shoot a Barca player. And it culminated in a shoot with Messi.
When shooting outside, the world is your oyster. For me, that’s the inspiration. I am the happiest at outdoor shoots with sunlight. My most favourite picture ever is actually of this girl standing with a bag of rice in front of a completely destroyed home—the ground has opened up, there’s no roof—in Nepal during an earthquake. This girl stood there with a smile because she was just grateful and that kind of joy you will never feel anywhere else. Joy can be felt in those moments where you find human resilience, where you find people fighting against the odds and making it and you are just there to document it and tell their story. I also shoot underwater because I am a scuba diver. One of my most joyous moments of the year was when I was diving in Egypt and I got circled by a white shark. I was shooting it and it came right up to my chest. After that dive, I came up, we all sat down and we were like—this is life. This is why we do what we do. The most joy I will ever get is when I am humbled. Nothing will ever top it. I have never lived so hard in a moment.”
AVANI RAI
She believes that moments often reveal themselves inall their emotions and nuances. So, joy is to be found in these moments, if only you are open to seeing it. “I think many photographers see many parallel universes all at once and the ability of a photographer lies in narrowing down to that one moment in time where actually in the real world so many parallels exist. There is a rhythm that life takes just like your heartbeat. There is a rhythm at which the world functions and to be able to narrow down to that rhythm in that moment in time is joy. The moment is in front of you. You have to be open to be able to see it. Once you have chosen the moment, you have to wait for it to reveal itself.
There are infinite themes that are always in front of you. It’s what you pick and choose and what you want to say. Every moment has all the feelings and nuances. So, to choose which moment, which feeling, which emotion, or which nuance you want to tell, is what you capture.
I think joy is not joy in its raw form or how we would understand it because joy—whether it’s to an animal, human being or nature—reveals itself differently to everybody. So, in a space where there is not too much joy, there is a sense of hope. Joy is not universal but hope is and that’s why we kind of live and that’s why we’re alive. So, a sense of hope is what I try to get when I feel there is a lack of joy.”
ANURAG BANERJEE
For Anurag Banerjee, joy is light. It is growth. It is rebellion. His journey as a photographer began when he left his hometown Shillong to move to Pune first and then Mumbai. Amidst the overwhelming happenings of the world, he looks back at his journey and finds solace in his home—whether in Mumbai or Shillong.
“Good light is something that brings me joy. Wherever I am, the first thing I notice when I enter a space is the way the light plays up. If a space is well-lit, if you have good sunshine, and you have some nice dramatic shadows, I think that’s what brings me joy.
There is something about a scene like that, which is so commonplace, which is so everyday and so ordinary. I feel like it’s something that binds us all and I feel a lot of joy in that sense of union. I look at joy as also something that is a protest. I look at joy as rebellion. We are joyful despite the circumstances, not because of it, and I want that to reflect in my work—where even if there is a portrayal of joy, it is with this understanding that we are in a pretty dark time in the history of humanity. So, if there is that moment of joy, it is photographed as a respite.
There is a sense of we can make it through. I’ve also realised the power of photography as an introspective medium. We tend to think of photography as a response to the world around us, but it’s actually a response to the world within us. The work that has really stayed with me is not particularly joyful but it made me feel less alone. I feel like I want my work to make people feel less alone, because all of us are lonely at this moment of time.”
HASHIM BADANI
With Mumbai as his eternal muse, city-based photographer Hashim Badani feels joy is to be found in the shared experience of it. “For me, joy stems from the every day,” Badani tells Bazaar India. “For me, my practice begins with actually listening to others—what they are saying, what they are doing and recognising those unique moments. I think that there is some sort of healing that comes from seeing people being resilient. I did a story on a palliative care centre in Pune. At the heart of it were the patients and the staff—all intertwined with stories of love, pain, care, dignity, and joy. What I hadn’t made space to understand is the role of the caregiver the love, dedication, and courage it takes to be there for someone you love. As heartbreaking as it was, there was definitely also a sense of joy and happiness, because there was a sense of dignity of looking back and accepting life.
I spend a lot of time walking around, spending less time looking into my phone and just observing what are the small daily activities that people do—it could be going for a walk, watering your plants or even meeting a dog on the road whom you see everyday. What I might think is a normal day might be a specific festival for someone else and seeing people celebrate brings its own joy. I think that’s where I draw from—there is something to celebrate everyday and there is joy in the everydayness and I want to celebrate its effortlessness.
When you observe something and it makes you happy, the first thing you want to do is share it with people. That’s where the documentation part of experiencing and capturing the everyday comes in.”
SAUMYA KHANDELWAL
Award-winning photojournalist Saumya Khandelwal has often found herself documenting stories right from the heart of political upheaval, grave injustices, and conflict zones. Joy doesn’t necessarily look any different to her but her experiences have taught her to find it in places where it has been misplaced the most. “Joy is no different for a photographer than it is for any other human. For me, it is more about channelising what the situation in front of me makes me feel into an image. I would like to make the viewer feel the same emotion that I felt when I was viewing it. My hope lies in the resilience of people and the fact that despite those (tough) experiences, they find little ways to be happy and to share joy with one another. It’s important for me to know the personal stories of people. I usually don’t like to just go to a place and start photographinga person and come out without knowing the nuances of their lives.
I also naturally gravitate towards photographing women. One thing that always impresses me is the strength and resilience that they have. There was this one story that I was doing about the women of the Sundarbans, who have planted mangroves in the vicinity of their villages to protect their islands from erosion. I was on this boat with these women and we stepped out and they were inspecting the mangrove to check if they were growing fine.
When we got back to where we started from, the water levels had risen and the boat could reach up to the banks. So, these women had to get down into the water and walk in it to get back to the island. This woman, named Aparna Dhara got down, and she was just smiling away. It was just a very nice moment of her coming back from a day’s work and navigating through this little ordeal that came her way.
British photographer Terry O’Neill is to be the subject of a feature-length documentary, titled Iconic: The Life And Work Of Terry O’Neill, helmed by UK filmmaker Oliver Murray.
The film is being made with the close co-operation of Terry O’Neill’s surviving family. O’Neill will narrate his own story via previously unheard recordings.
The east London-born photographer was famous for snapping the likes of Judy Garland, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the British royal family and Elton John.
It is produced by Hank Starrs (Elstree 1976) and Murray through Orofena Films. Laurence Gornall’s Unannounced Film Company is selling the title at the EFM.
Murray’s credits include docu-series My Life As A Rolling Stone and Disney+ short The Beatles: Now And Then.
“I was lucky enough to interview Terry in 2017 to discuss his long relationship with the Rolling Stones,” said Murray. ”Ever since then I wanted to bring his life and work to the screen. Terry took portraiture out of the studio and into the real world. He created a fantasy within the frame but the contradiction of his work is that this fantasy often revealed a deeper truth about the person he was photographing.
”He could boil down someone’s essence and magnetism to a single brilliant image, displaying icons of our age as vulnerable and emotional. Even the most inaccessible stars wanted to pose for him; mention a global celebrity from the second half of the 20th century and that person probably posed for Terry’s camera.”
Sisters Saga (left) and Ylva, and photographer Tina Signesdottir Hult, a friend of their parents, could all sense the serene atmosphere of the building they were shooting in: an old workman’s house at Visnes copper mine in Norway that Signesdottir Hult had chosen specifically for the purpose. “I wanted to capture a sense of the passage of time by connecting the delicate, ephemeral nature of the girls’ youth with the enduring, resilient spirit of the house,” Signesdottir Hult says.
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The photographer says the girls are “both very sweet, sensitive and compassionate, but otherwise complete opposites. Saga, 10, is calm, sometimes quite shy, while Ylva, 11, is very energetic. This is a study in contrasts and connections; not just of light and shadow across their faces, but the emotional differences between the sisters. The subtlety in their expressions and body language invites the viewer to ponder the story behind their moment of quietude,” she adds.
Their parents thought Signesdottir Hult captured their daughters in a “very calm and profound way”, she says, and both girls were pleased with the results, too. “I never tell my models how to act,” Signesdottir Hult says. “Their pose came about naturally. We worked together to capture a beautiful moment.”
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Do you know of an artist who paints the most beautiful landscapes you have ever seen? Someone whose photography leaves you in awe? A singer whose songwriting brings you to tears?
Nominate them for our “Artist of the Week” series.
“Artist of the Week” is a series where we profile artists of all kinds in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest every Saturday. If you’re wondering just what constitutes art, that’s the beauty of it; it’s up to you. From bands to muralists to photographers, vloggers, fashion designers and even macaron decorators— an artist of any craft is eligible.
Heck, you can even nominate yourself!
This city is packed with amazingly talented artists we love to feature weekly on Seattle Refined. Here’s a sample of the incredible artists we’ve featured:
Participating artists will be featured on our website with a Q&A and posted on our Instagram and other social media platforms. The entire process is done via email. Each artist must send 10-25 high-res images of their work and answer nine questions to be featured.
It’s that simple!
If you have a local artist in mind that you want to see featured or want to nominate yourself, email us at hello@seattlerefined.com.
View all of our “Artist of the Week” features in our dedicated section.
Have you ever looked at a cover of National Geographic and wondered how they take those amazing images? Or maybe like me you dream about getting a call from Nat Geo to go on an assignment, and wonder what that would look like?
Well, if you answered yes, you will be glued to this new six-episode docuseries from Nat Geo called Photographer. These individual episodes, each an hour long, take a deep dive behind the scenes of how seven National Geographic photographers struggle to take images that adorn the pages of this international publication.
If that doesn’t sound tempting enough, then take a look at the official trailer for Photographer below, and tell me you don’t get chills watching it!
Each episode has been directed by award-winning directors, to enhance the story of each photographer’s journey to capture images that take your breath away.
From the insightful vision of Oscar-winning husband and wife duo E Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo) to the skilled direction of Tribeca winner Marshall Curry (Racing Dreams), International Documentary Association winner Pagan Harleman (The Trade), Sundance-winning Crystal Kayiza (Rest Stop), San Diego International Film Festival winner Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI), Emmy-winning Kristi Jacobson (Solitary) and LA Outfest winner Rita Baghdadi (Sirens), each episode is a collaborative and visually stunning adventure that invites anyone into a captivating world where every frame tells an inspiring story.
“Photographer is a testament to National Geographic’s commitment to delivering groundbreaking narratives that spark curiosity, leaving a lasting impact on our viewers,” said Tom McDonald, executive vice president, Global Factual and Unscripted Content.
“The intentional pairing of these visionary directors with each respective photographer captures the essence of their creativity and showcases the extraordinary lengths they go to redefine the boundaries of visual storytelling.”
Photographer premieres on March 18 2024 on National Geographic, and will also available to stream on March 19 2024 on Disney+ and Hulu.
If you’re serious about documentaries, you might be interested in the best cameras for filmmaking and the best cine lenses.
