Meet the Creatives of Bristol: Suzannah Mary
Posted on: 26 Jan 2018In our Meet the Creatives of Bristol series, we scout the city for locals who work in a variety of creative fields. Whether they are at the early stage of their career, or are well-established, they represent the artistic city that Bristol is; vibrant, diverse and inspiring.
This time we caught up with Suzannah Mary, a photographer based in Bristol.
Suzannah specialises in Landscape, Portrait and Wedding photography based around the Bristol area.
Her photography addiction began only 3 years ago when a work colleague was selling a camera, so she decided to take a look at it and the rest became history.
Visiting the county of Wiltshire to play around with her second-hand Sony camera, she went to the rural settings of Devizes and Avebury, capturing everything that caught her eye. The feeling of creativity she loved, for it rewarded her a feeling of accomplishment, that to this day still exists.
In the time that followed, Suzannah's style has adapted and developed widely. She has gone to many locations to shoot, including various spots around the South West and in Scotland. Her photographs hold a crisp, professional aesthetic. The landscape images speak for themselves and are hard to look away from. Her focus on light captures the natural elements in a high-resulution that is bold, powerful and calming at once. This effect is acheievd in part by using a Canon ESO 5D mark ii and a range of lenses like; Canon 70-200, Canon F2.8 and Canon 24-105 F4. In addition she uses a special filter and poloriser to enhance the contrast of the colours. Finally she uses Photoshop and Lightroom to hand process all of her images, ensuring that the quality and colour balance is correct.
Her image of The Sugar Loaf Mountain will be the opening image for the Wales section in the 2018 National Trust Handbook. A huge acheievment for any photographer, let alone one who is more recent to the profession.
Below is her story of her expedition to visit the Sugar Loaf Mountain, as told by Suzannah herself;
‘’On the 28th May 2017 I set out in my car with my photography kit. I camped in my car (a tiny Citroen C1), at the bottom of ‘The Sugar Loaf Mountain’ and set an alarm for the next day at 04:00am. Waking up, I set off up the mountain without seeing any sunlight. The mountain was surrounded by fog and there were times along the way where I thought it wouldn’t clear at all. Half way through I almost turned back, but hopeful that visibility would improve, I continued on. Approaching the peak, the sunrise began to pierce through the dense mist. The horizon lit up orange and red and the sunlight was warm on my face. As I walked further and reached the peak, there was no one else but me. As the sun rose it cast beautiful golden light across the fields below and the dense fog crawled along the hills behind me. I was amazed by the scene and set up my camera.
I came away with some stunning shots and beautiful memories. The feeling I get upon capturing one of theses rare moments is what inspires me to take photos. With great thanks to the National Trust photo competition, my image of The Sugar Loaf will be the opening image for the Wales section in the 2018 National Trust Handbook. National Trust sites are places of outstanding natural beauty where I can escape day to day life and explore the diversity of nature.’’
Suzannah has been inspired by the likes of photographers Thomas Heaton and Irene Rudnyk. Both are also well-known Youtube vloggers, which is something that she is also looking to get into in the future.
Collaboration is also an interest of Suzannah's, having recently been involved in a project with local florist, Megan Lily Flowers, who supplied beautiful flowers for a photo shoot with a model. Fun and interesting photoshoots are something that she genuinely enjoys and working with people is one of her favourite aspects about her profession. Creating memories with familys are moments that will last forever and is something that she hopes to continue and develop into the future.
If you would like to organise a shoot with Suzannah, you can contact her through her website here where a select few of her prints are also available to purchase. Go check out more of her amazing work!
***If you are a Bristol creative and are interested in being featured, contact hannah@365bristol.com***
Article by:
Hannah recently graduated with a degree in English with Writing. She is an avid writer, freelancer and creative. She is currently writing her first full-length novel and a collection of poetry. Always out and about in Bristol's music scene, she attends music events on a weekly basis.
