Shutter Speed

Our first in the series of photog profiles. This week I Blog Fashion gets a look behind the lens at the fab Nathalie Marquez Courtney!

How long have you been taking photographs?
I’ve been flirting with photography casually for years; but it only really got serious last September when I purchased my first proper camera, a Canon 400D.

Why do you like about it most?
I love that it can be fun, candid and casual one minute and meaningful and creative the next. I also like the fact that you’re always learning. You can never say, “right, I’ve mastered that technique”, there is always something more to discover. On a more personal note, I love capturing my friends and family - pregnancy bumps, new puppies, loose teeth, these are all things that are only there for a short period of time, so it’s nice to be able to freeze them for a frame or two: “photography... remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything,” said abstract expressionist photographer Aaron Siskind, and I’d like to agree.

What’s your fave photo that you have taken and why?
It changes from day to day but at the moment it’s a simple shot I took back in December of the Poolbeg Towers. I took it from the DART window, which gave it a cool green tint that I then enhanced in Phtoshop.

You’re a pap for a day - who gets snapped and doing what?!
Photographing the paps themselves would make for an interesting photo study! People who give up their whole day to follow a famous (or in many cases, not-so-famous) person around for days on end, you have to wonder what kind of effect it has on them. I’d like to snap them at work: the expressions on their faces as they shout out things to get a reaction, the kind of angles they choose to snap from, the jostling with fellow paps, all those things.

What is it that makes you pull out your camera?
I really do think that photography is not about what you see, but how you see it. So something I could have walked past a million times before can suddenly become fascinating depending on what mood I'm in. I love relaxed people shots too, so am constantly papping my friends and family.

Who’s your fave photog? Why?
Wow, there are loads! But the very first photog I fell for was gingerpixel.com and I still check her blog daily; she takes really gorgeous, unique photos. You’ll find some truly inspiring snaps at rymus.net (he also posts at glasseyalley.com) and Philip Pankov’s black and white Dublin shots are amazing.

Nathalie ran away from her family circus to pursue a degree in English and Spanish in UCD, where she worked on the college paper and fell into the whole writing game; outside cyberland, she works as writer for U Magazine. When not taking/editing/uploading photos, she continues her quest to find the best spicy chicken wings in the city (Ocean Bar in Grand Canal Dock is still winning). She blogs at casacaseycourtney.wordpress.com and dublinblog.ie.

Slide.com url:
http://www.slide.com/r/Pniul6HS3j8PiC0zj-3mn1tPMUkgA3mt?previous