articles/Landscape/nathan-wake-page1

Nathan Wake ASINWP - Member Profile - part 1 of 1 2

by Nathan Wake Published 10/04/2015

Nathan Wake has been around cameras for years. He currently works for Fujifilm around the London area, supplying professional photographic labs with paper and chemistry. Before that he worked in camera shops and even ran the trade counter at Drummond Street when it was KJP. Back when he was at school Nathan was always the one with the camera - shooting pictures for classmates field trips and projects - but it's only recently that he went public with his pictures and finally achieved his Associateship at January's Convention. His use of a Compact System Camera, the Fujifilm X-Pro1 is of particular relevance in this issue.

'It's always been a way for chilling out for me' Nathan tells me when I ask him why he takes photos. 'Particularly now that I've got older, I'm not always very good at reading instruction books and I need to learn by going out and being hands-on.' When working at KJP Nathan would often take advantage of the rental department when a customer had a query, going out and learning how to use the equipment himself so that he could teach others. 'It was always a means to an end when I was working in shops, but more recently it's become a case of just going somewhere that I want to go and taking some time out to relax.' Growing up in the Lake District and then moving to Kent has meant that Nathan has always been around beautiful, watery landscapes. So it's no surprise then that landscapes that feature the Kent coast are the stars of Nathan's portfolio. 'I've tried doing portraits but I don't find it relaxing in the same way. It's funny really, because I can talk to a customer quite happily one-on-one, but if you put a camera between us it forms a barrier and I find it very hard to talk to someone over a camera.' 'I've always had a thing for maps' Nathan tells me when I ask him how he plans his days out shooting landscapes. 'I often use Ordinance Survey maps alongside a couple of apps on my iPad. My most used app is probably The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE).' TPE is handy app for any outdoor photographer. It helps you plan natural light photographing, showing how the light will fall on the land for any location in the world. 'It's helpful when you're traveling' says Nathan. 'At Photo Training Overseas I used it to find sunset and sunrise. Locally it's helpful too, for example there's a pier on the Kent coast that lines up with the sunrise for just two days a year and TPE helped me plan when those days would be.'

At the end of the day, Nathan believes that perseverance is one of the factors that will ultimately make a landscape photographer successful. 'I love revisiting locations. When you go somewhere in spring you get a different image to when you go in autumn so you can always discover new shots that you didn't take the first time.' Nathan loves to get off the beaten track and head away from the other photographers to find something unique to shoot; 'I think you can look at a view and see the reason why everyone else loves to shoot it, but I like to go somewhere else and perhaps look at the same place from a different view. My best pictures are usually caught when I'm out on my own with my camera, but I do enjoy shooting with friends too. It always amazes me how two people in the same place with almost identical kit can still get some very different pictures.'

• Nathan Wake ASINWP - Member Profile page 1
  
• Nathan Wake ASINWP - Member Profile page 2
  

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