The countdown to Poland Trek has started and in just over 48 hours I'll be in Poland. One of our equipment sponsors
, who make the best in DSLR rigs and accessories have written a great write up about my reasons and challenges involving photography and film.
The inspirational torchbearers for the 2012 London Olympics have just been officially announced and Louis-Philippe Loncke, Belgian adventurer and explorer is one of the chosen ones! He'll be running on the 15th of June through
.
Congratulations Louis-Philippe! I'm honoured to be joining him on his next expedition this May in
.
One of the top goals for this year was to get completely and utterly out of my comfort zone - both physically and artistically.
Although I'm happy to travel to pretty much most places to do a shoot, usually they don't take more than a week maximum (for stills anyway) and so far they have been in pretty urban settings.
As you'll see from my work, I'm not really an outdoor/nature photographer but this year I really wanted to get out with my camera for a significant length of time and do something totally different.
Well, an exciting opportunity came up to join the Belgium explorer
on a trek through Poland's Tatras Mountains and along its wild Vistula River. I met Louis-Philippe last year when working on an article about Belgians Living Without a Government (which ended up in The Guardian UK). I was bowled over by his unbridled enthusiasm - he only took to exploring seven years ago at the age of 27- since then, he's crossed the Simpson desert, trekked across Iceland and tackled Everest. All virtually unaided and on his own; just him and his will power.
So now the Poland Trek and organization for it have pretty much taken over my life. It's only a couple of months away so we're looking for sponsors and media partners. I'm going to be taking stills and filming and am in the middle of putting together a small film crew.
We now have the backing of National Geographic Poland behind us, which is great and I'm currently seeing if we can get some gear together which would take this expedition to another level in visual terms.
If you are interested in sponsorship or know someone who would be, please get in contact and I can send the official Poland Trek brochure.
Please contact me at :
natalie (at) nataliehillphotography.com
Film was my first love and what I studied for my Masters years ago at The University of East Anglia. One of the best years of my life, spending hours immersed in Powell and Pressburger. Since then I've always been writing but haven't had a chance to do much film. Well that's all been changing and now I'm doing more and more motion work in link with my photography work for clients and personal work. I've joined a film collective called
with two great creatives: Bernardo Camisao and Paul Arinaga.
There is quite a lot in the pipeline but here's a couple of fun shoots I've done so far.
Another catch up from last year but I wanted to write about how it's really great to see talented and dedicated filmmakers doing something brilliant, especially in this current climate.
A friend of mine, the excellent actor,
(of Harry Potter fame) did some filming last year with Realm Pictures on their project called
The project is hugely ambitious with the team making a series of 5 short films which are set underwater and span different periods of time, from modern day to medieval Britain and which focus on the times in history when a race living beneath the sea meet human beings.
These guys have come up with some really amazing and innovative ways to film in challenging situations and on a tight budget.
They had a Kickstarter campaign last year, which I donated to, that was a huge success. Apart from the shear talent and enthusiasm that came across in spades, I'm sure part of the success of the campaign was how they got their investors involved. There were a huge range of rewards and lot appealed to anyone interested in knowing more about techniques that go into independent film making.
In my photography I'm using more and more continuous light rather than strobe and was intrigued by the very cool looking LED industry, soft lights, similar to Kino Flos that they had invented themselves- that are even water proof! I couldn't resist when they were offering it as one of the rewards. I'm looking forward to creating them- anyone in Brussels good at DIY let me know!
Also for wannabe DOPs like myself check out the excellent
from The Underwater Realm's DOP - Eve Hazelton (forPhilipBloom.net)
It's too late to donate to the Kickstarter campaign but you can follow their progress on
I love Chinese New Year and from my 4 years living in Shanghai this time of year brings back fond memories of being kept up all night for a week with firecrackers. I thought I'd use the start of the year of the Dragon (officially on the 23rd) to relaunch this blog. I'll be writing about what's going on in my photography and film world and work, people, and projects that have grabbed my attention.
Until till then...Happy Year of the Dragon everyone.
Back at the beginning of 2010, I was commissioned by Delta Sky magazine, the magazine of Delta airways to photograph everything Tintin in Brussels. Being a Tintin fan it was a really fun assignment, especially as I managed to blag my way up to the top of the Lombard building upon which stands a huge Tintin and Snowy sign. It was a real pleasure to work with the magazine and I loved the layout that the Art Director, Ted Rossiter, did for the piece. After it was published in May last year I didn't think much more of it.
I found out last week that the article just won an Ozzie award, which are US awards given out to magazine design and excellence. The article won best use of photography in a custom magazine!
A seriously nice surprise for this Tintin fan. Thanks to Ted Rossiter and Delta Sky magazine.
I was lucky enough to be asked to take some portraits of Biotech farmers from China, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Brazil and the Philippines.
the European association lobbying for Biotech food and farming in Europe organised a conference here in Brussels and took the opportunity of these visiting farmers to take some more intimate portraits. We didn't have a huge amount of time, I shot the farmers before the beginning of the Europabio conference with my new
backdrop. The idea was to highlight the people behind Biotech farming so we wanted to do a split picture showing the crop and the farmers. Thank you to all the farmers; amenable and interesting subjects.
I went to check out the top of Park 58 the other week. It's this rather ugly car park in the center of Brussels. Its redeeming feature is up on the top outdoor floor where you get this great panorama of the city. I thought it would be a cool place to do some urban portraits so I dragged Sharm and Ilse, a couple of friends, up to the top and experimented. It was absolutely freezing that day but the beautiful blue skies made it worth while. The photo below is of Lady Sharm. The car park may be pulled down next year so if you're interested check it now. For more info check out this website
My little dog, Chilli, kindly agreed to sit for this portrait which accompanied a recent article in The Bulletin Magazine about Belgians' obsession with small dogs. Chilli will do anything for a bit of chicken including acting, uncharacteristically, like an angel for the 2 seconds it took me to take the picture.
I've purchased a couple of low end film cameras recently, to get back to basics. The first I bought is a Holga medium format camera. It's inexpensive with basic settings and made of plastic. Below are few examples from my first developments. As you can see they are a bit rough and getting the focus right is a bit of challenge but I'm loving it because it's so different from what I get on my polished 5d ii. The main reason I wanted a few film cameras was to return to photography basics where each shot counts. It's sometimes too easy to run hundreds, if not thousands of shots off on a digital camera. Also experimenting with double exposure is something you don't really think about with a digital.
I also brought a beautifully crafted wooden pinhole camera. It's made by a guy in Poland who seems to sell them exclusively on ebay. I was really excited to receive it as the craftsmanship is awesome. I've taken a few shots and will post my results soon.
Posting this a little bit late as the magazine has been out now for a couple of weeks but here is the September cover of the Bulletin magazine that I had the pleasure to shoot. It was for their 'Mobility' issue and we had an afternoon shooting in Brussels toy museum. The museum is a mad and dusty place, jam packed with children's toys, antique and new.
For the front cover I asked Mr Ted, my model muse here in Brussels, to kindly lend his angular cheek bones and Swedish good looks. We took some of the toys out into a little alleyway at the back of the museum and after a bit of cajoling managed to fit Ted into a child's tricycle. Being well over 6 foot, it certainly wasn't the most comfortable of positions. After a bit of creative chalk drawing we got the shot which hopefully expresses a playful take on the subject.
Another star of the day was little Milo. We bombarded him with all kinds of model toys and he was an angel through out. I discovered the secret to keeping a toddler happy- talk about Toy Story 3!
I've been shooting for The Bulletin magazine for the last 4 or 5 months but June took the collaboration a step higher. The excellent new editor Tamara
Gausi
had the the idea of celebrating the magazine's Europe issue by collecting 27 interesting Europeans and doing a group photo shoot for the front cover. Tamara had been to the recently opened
Pantone
boutique hotel in Brussels and thought it would be a good place to get all the subjects together.
We did the shoot over two nights in room 504. It was a hot and sticky couple of nights but I was lucky to shoot some interesting, fun and quirky European subjects. Thankfully Tamara provided a few glasses of wine before the shoot so everyone was in a relaxed mood before they got to the bedroom. My requests for them to jump, get in and under the bed were met with open arms.. The group shot with one group lounged/crammed on the bed made it to the front cover. I'm pretty happy with the result and I think it makes a different, colourful front cover for The Bulletin. It's on the newsstands now so if anyone is in or passing Brussels pick up a copy!
I usually do editorial portraits so when the opportunity arose to do a male model portfolio shoot I jumped at the chance. Lukas, the model, and I had fun experimenting with a few different looks. I wanted to show how adaptable his look his and how he can carry off a range of looks. Here are few rough examples.
I seem to be building up a portfolio of Belgian sporting heros. Back in April I photographed Yanina Wickmayer, the Belgian tennis player ranked 17 in the world.
We met at the Flemish national training ground, unfortunately she didn't have a lot of time so I couldn't take shots with her on the court but luckily managed to get some decent shots in a gym full of children.
Then in May I had the chance to meet Jean-Marie Pfaff and Eddy Merckx for lunch on two separate days. I accompanied journalist
Leo Cendrowicz
who writes for Time and The Bulletin amongst others.
Pfaff is an ex-Belgian goalie, known for his time with Bayern Munich and his part in Belgian's relative success in the world cup of the 80's. He's a reality star in Belgium and Holland now, where his reality show 'De Pfaffs' attracts a big dutch speaking audience. He was thoroughly charming, very gregarious and personable. I had a nice slot of time with him and at the end photographed his beautiful ginormous goalie hands.
Eddy Merckx, the famous cyclist, was a different kettle of fish. Merckx is probably Belgium's biggest sporting hero, known for his amazing determination and will power. This determination saw him named champion of the Tour de France numerous times in the 60's. He was more sober and introspective person than Pfaff and I thought he a great distinguished face which lent itself to a black and white portrait. The restaurant we were in was pretty dim and even with my lights didn't photograph well, so I ask Merckx outside where there was a nice stark white brick wall with I thought would set off his features well.
