Rachael shared a glimpse into her childhood.
“I have so many memories of those years sailing. In one of them, we are at sea in a storm. We are all sitting in the cockpit of our boat, being soaked in spray, the boat heeling over at a terrifying angle, and all of us are whooping out loud, yelling into the storm. My parents were probably trying to stop us from being frightened, and they mostly succeeded because I remember it as a wonderfully wild moment of freedom.”
Rachael’s Sirens series draws inspiration from both mythology and her childhood
experiences observing waves. We asked the photographer to share more about how those early memories influenced the conceptualization of this series.
“As a child, I was prone to seasickness so would have to spend long sea voyages on deck. With
nothing else to do, I amused myself watching the waves. Like most children, I was imaginative, so I saw in the waves strange creatures. For ‘Sirens’, I had been going to the beach in storms every week for months, watching the way the waves bounced back from the sea wall and crashed into other waves. I found that when I worked with fast shutter speeds, I could see creatures in the storm, just as I had when I was sailing. I’ve always been interested in mythology and had the pleasure of studying the works of Homer at University so the idea to name the creatures after mythological beings came quite naturally.”
We were wondering how Rachael approaches capturing the sense of awe and imagination that defines this aesthetic, particularly through her coastal photography.
She responded: “In my opinion, there is no better source for the sublime than the ocean. Fear of the sea is profound within all of us. It’s hardly surprising – we are land dwellers, after all. Despite this, we are also attracted to the ocean, as proved by the crowds that congregate on my nearest beach on a stormy day. Like them, I seek encounters with the wild ocean because I know deep inside that despite, or perhaps because of, its dangerous power, it is fundamentally life-affirming.
Part of its allure is the idea of the unknown, something mysterious that we can’t quite comprehend. This strangeness can be communicated in a number of ways, such as finding a different point of view or an unusual shutter speed. I will often remove as much context as I can from my compositions, for example, avoiding landmarks or human figures so that scale becomes ambiguous. The best way of all, in my opinion, is to spend as much time as you can just observing and experiencing your subject. Only then will you find something new to say about it.”
Rachael’s process involves printing and living with photographs before releasing them to
the public. Rachael explained how this rigorous practice impacts the way she refines and
perfects her work.
“I think a photograph only comes alive for me once I have printed it. It needs the physical form to feel complete. Printing has made me a more thoughtful photographer. The way we share photographs these days encourages fast workflows – it’s very easy to let the demands of social media force us into sharing new work too soon. I wish I could say that there are no photographs of me on the internet of which I am not proud. But I can say there are far fewer since I started printing and waiting. People who buy my prints are going (hopefully) to live with them on their walls for a long time. It feels right to me that I should have done that too.”
Rachael has achieved remarkable recognition, including awards like Black and White Photographer of the Year in 2018 and the Classic View winner in 2017. Rachael shared how these accolades influenced her career, and what advice she would give to aspiring photographers.
“I am no longer motivated by competitions, but these awards were useful at the time. They gave me confidence, and they garnered valuable publicity which led to opportunities including gallery representation. However, there are so many more competitions these days and they are all vying for a share of almost the same amount of publicity previously shared between just a few competitions. I think aspiring photographers should consider being selective in what they enter.
Does the competition have a book or exhibition or both? What sort of publicity do they give to their winners? Do they have a reputation for integrity – do they actually give the prizes they promise, do they respect the artists’ copyright, and do they tag the artist appropriately when using their work online? You’d think all of these would be automatic but, unfortunately, that is not the case. Finally, and most importantly, if you do enter a competition, you have to be resilient. Just because your photo didn’t win doesn’t mean that it’s not a great photo. There are so many things apart from the quality of your image that can influence its chances of success.”
