About Nathan 

"My career in visual anthropology began in 2016 with the impulse to document my evolution and path within the performance industry. I chose to photograph myself and my peers both in and out of character to help audiences recognise the people behind the process.

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As the years passed, my focus shifted to subjects outside of the performance industry. My goal has always been to capture movement. Whether it’s the movement of form, thoughts, ideas or intentions, I aim to help my audience see movement in a still image.

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With imaging technology having evolved and developed to be so incredibly accessible, and with social media becoming a part of our every day lives, photography has become a prolific tool of self expression and documentation. As empowering as this has been for a growing society, I feel the relevance of conscious photography cannot be understated. The world has become so saturated with images that we have unknowingly cultivated a lack of respect and appreciation for the power of the craft. When corporate interests and volume take precedent over genuine interest and quality, we forget the power, reach and influence that photography has. 

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Throughout every stage of my personal development as a photographer, my goal has always been to learn as much as I can. Whether it's building my technical abilities and creative vision, or deepening my comprehension of the world so I can better capture it - the desire to understand has always been my driving force. After some time, I reached a point in my experience where my perspective of the world and its demands on the photography industry shifted. I began seeing how the demands of social media, popular culture and political correctness were warping the creative process of photographers. It seemed to me that apart from slight differences in image processing, photographers were all doing the same thing. Shooting similar subjects in the same way with similar edits and doing so all for the purpose of growing on social media or gaining traction within their socio-political echo chambers. The more the public responded to certain types of images, the more photographer's attempted to recreate those types of images. This meant that photography, as a medium, began losing all intentionality.

I realised that my approach of learning through the medium wasn't one that was necessarily shared by many others. I made attempts to follow the standard career path of a "photographer" by doing test shoots with models, products and events photography as well as studio shoots, all in an attempt to identify the "niche" that everyone said was so important for a new photographer to find. However, my attempts to fit in only made me feel more isolated as a creative. The process was no longer about refining my creative understanding, but rather determining what role the industry said I should play within its boundaries.

What the world considered to be a "professional photographer" was something I didn't remotely identify with. This meant that calling myself a "photographer" was something I became deeply insecure about - I didn't feel I was befitting of the title. I realised that simply using a camera didn't make me a photographer - much like cooking food doesn't make someone a chef. 

I had to accept that there is a difference between what we do and what we are. I may use a camera, but neither my goals nor my processes embodied the alleged standards of a conventional photographer. This had to mean I was something else. Something similar but not quite the same. In doing an audit of my motivations and aspirations I recognised that my appetite for learning was the key. My desire to find relevance, significance and purpose in the world around me, and do so through imagery, meant that I was not a photographer - I was a visual anthropologist."