HEAVYWEIGHTS 02 —BECCA NAEN

25 Sept

BEcca Naen

Rebecca Naen is an Irish film & digital portrait & fashion photographer. Becca’s work consists of light & energetic portrait photography for campaigns & editorials, and beautiful zines of her travel photography. I’ve assisted on shoots with Becca several times, the last for NOTION magazine’s cover shoot with singer Louise Johnson, I first met Becca whilst assisting on an adidas shoot for the late Daily Street with Alex Powis and Dom Fleming.

— Below is a condensed version of a conversation I had with Becca in February 2017 at her old flat in Battersea, London.

Who are you? What do you do for work?

My name is Rebecca Naen, I'm a freelance full-time fashion & portraiture photographer. Living in London for the last six years, moved up from Dublin in 2011. I'm represented by Frank Agency, I've been with them for the last eighteen months.

What do you do for fun?

My whole life has always been Photography, so everything I do is in relation to Photography in a way. Even when I'm on holiday, I'm always thinking about where I want to go in relation to Photography and I'm always doing a project when I'm away no matter if it's a full holiday or just a little trip, I'll always have that in mind. Then when I'm completely switched off, it's more just chillin'. I'm not a club person, I'd much rather go to the pub and have a few drinks and go to exhibitions & shows and that kinda thing, than anything else. Trying to go to more live shows this year, make the most of London.

Why did you you start Photography?

I literally remember exactly, I was about 14 and it was the time of DeviantArt and just before Flickr actually, and I stumbled across it and there was a Photographer I really loved there and I just thought.. I literally remember thinking, “I could be a Photographer”. So, 14 year-old me, we had digital cameras, and I had old-cameras and stuff at home anyway, so I just started having a mess around, as this was just the beginning really of the digital age, so I did start shooting digital, not film. I just messed around and then I think, the Christmas of my 14th Birthday I'd asked for a proper camera, but not like a full SLR at this stage, like one of those compact cameras, and I just taught myself really from then & went from then, took pictures of anyone who'd let me take pictures, messed around with macros at the time and was always out in my Granddad's garden taking pictures of water droplets on flowers.

What’s the most rewarding thing about being a Photographer ?

That it's literally my dream come true, you know, I've been shooting for 15 years now, and if you told me when I was starting out that I'd actually be a full-time Photographer, even up into my early 20's, if you told me I'd be doing this, I wouldn't have believed you. Yeah, I can honestly say I'm doing my dream job.

What's one thing you want to do more of?

One thing I really love about my job is working with people and getting to know people I would never normally know on a more personal level and them letting me into their lives a little bit, so I'd really like to kinda emphasize that and do (that) more, do a lot more portraiture and I know that on a both a personal level, I mean taking pictures more of my friends and the people in my life as well as people, influencers and people I find inspiring and things. I'd like to do more of that.

Do you have a daily routine?

Err... No. hahaha. Freelance life means that there's no daily routine and you don't know what's going to happen, and that you can never plan anything. Ever. There'd be weeks where I'm like “full week off next week, I can do whatever” and then of course on a Friday, 2 or three jobs will come in and I have to change everything. So yeah, every day is different, and stuff can be booked weeks in advance or hours in advance, and I've always got to be prepared for that. So my life is just loose plans.

Where do you work the most?

It really depends, again, because it's freelance it really depends on what I'm working on, what client I'm working with. If I'm retouching, then I'm here (Rebecca's flat in Battersea, London), if it's admin day then it's here, but if I'm shooting then I can be anywhere. Obviously most of my work is in London, but I can travel around the country, travel abroad, so I dont really have a set, back to the routine thing, there is no routine there is no set places.

Are you encouraged, inspired or influenced by the space? (your flat)

I make it so that it's my happy place, this is my zen area and there's little patches, even in this room that at different times of the year, different times of the day make me really happy. So, here (gesturing to the wall) when the light comes, we get light across this window the whole day and dappled light makes me really happy. When the leaves come out on the trees out there, at around 3 or 4 o'clock, depending on what time of the year it is, you get this beautiful dappled light across here, and that just gives me such happiness. This room is just really bright in general and I just try make, I just love plants, they give me a lot of, you know, life.

What’s the most important thing in your home workspace?

My plants, yeah (laughs). They've taken over slowly, the guy I used to live with said I had too much stuff and that I wasn't allowed to have “things” but I could have plants, so that's where it all started and I just got more and more plants, now it's just me & my boyfriend that live together so there's just plants and flowers everywhere.

What do you think your wardrobe says about you?

Erm... I don't really know. I mean, I'm quite relaxed, I wouldn't say I dress super smart, but I don't dress super causally either, I'm somewhere in between. I only ever wear trainers, I've got one pair of non-trainer shoes. I just like to be comfortable.

Would you say the way you dress is affected by or affects the work you make?

No, No. In my industry you can rock up to set in a tracksuit or in a suit, it doesn't really matter.

Not even in terms of what you're shooting? Sportswear, Athleisure, etc?

It's the fashion industry, you can really wear whatever you want, as long you're holding it and you're confident & comfortable in it, you can wear whatever you want.

Do you think there any overlaps in the aesthetics of your life & work?

I think in my personal work, yes. Obviously it's really different with commercial work, because that is client led, but you know in the zines that I make and things like that, I think there's a crossover there. Plants & trees feature heavily in my personal work and just light & things like that. Again, yeah, even in my editorials I guess it's kind of, if I was the kind of person to put my own work on my walls, which I'm not (laughs), then I would put my personal work on my walls (laughs again).

Do you like trying new things? - Has this ever influenced your approach to work?

With Photography, you're always learning, that's one of the other things I really love about it is that you know, every step forward opens another door to something new and you're constantly learning and getting better. If there's something I don't know how to do in Photoshop, I'll teach myself how to do it. If there's a technique on camera, digital or film, that I don't know how to do, I'll teach myself how to do it. It's always a challenge.

Is Multidisciplinism important to you?

Personally, I like to paint, I'm doing a bit more motion in my work, I really like typography and things like that, but it's not something that I would ever do myself in a work environment, you know what I mean? Like, I paint, but that's for me. I do other things, but that's just for me. I don't really overlap with work, my photography is my photography, and I'm starting to do motion but that'd be the only kind of, because it's a kind of offset of the photography. For me, I'd like to be really good at what I do, rather than trying to spread myself too thin.

Are you happy with your current work flow and approach to projects?

Yeah, I mean since I've been with the agency, there's a really nice balance of commercial, personal and editorial. Having an amazing team behind me pushing the commercial work makes it freer for me to do the editorial that I want and when time's are quiet I can just keep doing editorial and the things that I really love. Being with the agency has taken a massive pressure off me, they do so much for me, that frees up more time for me to do other things... but still work related.

Can you walk us through your process?

If it's a commercial job normally an email will come through and it will have their brief, and I”ll have to do a treatment & pitch in relation to that, so I'll sit down and gather my own references of work I've already done that relates to the project they're doing and put a treatment together for my approach and how I'd do the brief for them. Then that'll go back to the client, there might be a bit more adding or taking away or talking and then we'll normally have a meeting, then a recce'... and then we shoot! As well as getting all the lighting hire and equipment hire and getting assistants on board, all that side of production. But when it's editorial, it's a lot more relaxed. Either I'll pitch to a magazine or they approach me and I'll put together a moodboard of the feel I want for the shoot, but it won't be my work, it'll be different references. Then, normally, depending on the editorial there might be an Art Director or Creative Director from the magazine with me or I'm just shooting on my own, it's a lot more free.

Do you think a Creator can be defined by a project?

I wouldn't ever want to be, that's like an actor being defined by one film. You never want that. You want people to look at your work and know “oh yeah, that's Rebecca's work”, but you don't want it to look the same, you want the same energy and the same feel, but with it still being different all the time. So, no I wouldn't want to be defined by a project.

Do you feel that you’ve changed the world?

No. To me in my head, I am still the 14-year-old and I can't believe where I am. I even met with my friend yesterday, she said to me that I'm her inspiration and I just can't believe that, I don't believe that, it shocks me when I get messages from people being that they really love my work and that they admire me. To me I'm still learning and trying to figure it out myself and just shooting what I like to shoot, and for people to be inspired by that it blows my mind. I still feel the other side of that when I'm looking at other people's work, being like “oh my god, I'm never going to be like that”.

We're sat here listening to music, but do you like silence when you’re working?

I love music, if I'm sat too long in silence it really freaks me out. I like to have music as a massive part of my creative process and my mood and everything. I couldn't sit and retouch or sit and put a pitch together without music on. Or even just general life, it's just very silent in here, even if it's just stuff in the background, yeah I don't like to be in silence... Unless I'm going on a nice walk, but even then I like to listen to music and go for a walk, I find that the world looks different when you're listening to music and watching the world.

Regardless of project or brief, what ideas do you try to put across in your work?
Do they also apply to you personally in how you live?

In some ways. I'm mixed race, I'm half Malaysian and I really love to work with a really diverse team and that doesn't mean I only want to work with mixed race people but I mean, we're all individual and we're all special, and I like to try and express that in what I do. Even when I'm going traveling, I like to show the lives of real people. Even in my fashion, when I'm in charge of casting, I like to work with loads of different people. Everyone is really beautiful and I just want to express that in what I do, I guess.