NZPhotographer Issue 23, September 2019

The Up and Coming Talent from Kapiti College
We’ve heard Fairlie talk about teaching, now let’s switch sides and hear about
the creative/photographic journey that some of her students are on as we see the
projects they’ve completed.
aesthetic. My style of photography is quirky, girly
aesthetics. I love both trying to communicate a
message through photography in a creative way,
and also just experimenting with random meaningless
ideas. I find photography a way to express my
creativity and art, using props and settings to create
an image no one else will have seen.
CAN YOU CHOOSE A FAVOURITE PHOTO OR
PROJECT?
These photos are a series of four demonstrating a
progressing heart. The first photo is just a sparkler by
itself, the second a 1/4 heart, the third a 3/4 heart,
and the fourth a full heart. I created these images by
using sparklers to draw a heart shape. I adjusted the
settings manually to a low shutter speed, the lowest
for the full heart as it took the longest to draw, and a
short shutter speed for the still sparkler. The low shutter
speed meant that I could draw the heart shape with
the sparkler and the camera would capture the light
trail, and dismiss the wire stick of the sparkler so that a
heart outline was created with sparks flying off it. I also
put a piece of pink cellophane over one studio light,
and a blue piece to cover the other, this created an
ombre background.
NAME: MIETTA
AGE: 17
TELL US ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY WITH
PHOTOGRAPHY SO FAR…
I have always had a passion for taking aesthetic
images, and an appreciation for beauty – Trying to
capture the good in things or bring out the beauty.
I have always loved taking photos however had never
used a proper camera before, only using my phone.
So this year is the first year I have actually taken
photos on a DSLR. I struggled at the beginning to
figure out how to adjust and manipulate the settings
however, for every photo shoot I did, I played around
with the manual settings a lot until I got it right.
WHAT’S YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC STYLE?
I just love experimenting with props and camera
settings to create images that hold a beautiful
WHAT CHALLENGES YOU MOST IN CLASS?
HOW DO YOU/DID YOU OVERCOME THAT?
I sometimes struggle to come up with ideas, or plan
a series of shoots. I usually overcome this by finding
inspiration from Pinterest, or just coming up with a
simple idea. I then experiment a lot, so the basic idea
expands and more ideas come flowing until I finally
get the photo or idea I want. My best photos are the
ones where I had no plan or a very rough plan, the
photo created purely from experimentation. That is
what I find fun in photography: experimenting heaps
to get my creativity flowing.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR
PHOTOGRAPHY BEING CHOSEN TO FEATURE
ON THE KAPITI COLLEGE EXCIO ACCOUNT?
When I heard that, I was really excited and proud! To
be honest, when I first started the subject at school,
I didn’t think I would be good at photography, I was
kind of just messing around with some ideas and never
really thought they would go anywhere.