Name: Lucy Kayne
Current camera: Canon EOS 6D
Favourite type of photography: Shadows, black and white, fungi
Website: www.lucykayne.co.uk
Instagram: @lucykayne_photographer
Location: Diss in Norfolk, United Kingdom
How did you get into photography?
I did a fine art degree at Brighton University where I spent most of my time in the darkroom – I absolutely loved it. Since then, a camera of some sort travels with me wherever I go.
Do you have any photographic qualifications or accolades?
I have no specific qualifications, but I do run my own photography teaching business, which I’ve built up over the last nine years, so I consider that quite an accolade.
Read our Canon EOS R6 Mark III Review
What’s the first photograph you remember seeing or shooting?
I remember growing up in the 80s, using a 110 film cartridge camera and taking family snaps, usually with the tops of people’s heads cut off!
What do you love about photography?
I love capturing something that is there one moment and gone the next. I tend to shoot with the motto, ‘seeking beauty in the everyday’, so I love capturing moments that other people may walk past.
What do you wish you’d learned about photography earlier?
That it doesn’t matter what kit you use, it’s about what you see.
Where is your favourite place for photography?
Any building with beautiful light, especially a cathedral.
Do you have a favourite photographic technique?
I love black and white. I don’t spend a lot of time editing, so I tend to shoot in raw and JPG, with the JPG set to mono. I know the purists will always say shoot in colour and convert, but there is something about seeing the world in black and white, seeing how light and shadow interact, seeing textures and details that you don’t notice with a colour image. I love tuning my eye into these things. I also mainly shoot with a 50mm prime, which is such a versatile lens.
Can you briefly outline your approach to image processing?
On the rare occasion that I do edit, I’ll use the raw file and edit sparingly in Lightroom. It’s usually just a bit of cropping and increasing contrast and sharpness.
What’s your favourite lens?
My Canon 50mm f1.4.
Read our Guide to the Best Lensbaby Lenses
Do you have a favourite accessory?
I don’t really own any! I guess a beanbag for fungi photography is the most useful one I own.
Have you found the perfect camera bag yet?
I bought a Manfrotto shoulder bag years ago, which has served me well.
Which photographers have influenced or inspired you, and how or why?
I love Helene Binet’s architectural photographs, they’re so beautiful and elegant. I’m also inspired by Margaret Bourke-White’s journey and the challenges she faced and overcame as a female photographer.
Please recommend 2 or 3 female photographers to follow on Instagram?
Sue Shackleton @ginkgogalleryphotography and Jen Adams @jenadamsphotographer are both photographers whose work I admire. They photograph completely different subject matter, but make beautiful, considered photos.
Is there a camera, lens or accessory that you don’t have yet but you’d like to buy at some point?
I keep debating whether to go mirrorless, and the Olympus/OM System cameras are constantly tempting me.
Read our OM System OM-5 Mark III Review
Is there a genre of photography that you love but that you haven’t tried yet?
I’d love to have the patience for wildlife photography.
What’s your proudest photographic moment?
To have set up my own photography business, with a good solid client base and wonderful feedback about what I do. I’m incredibly proud to have helped so many people understand how to use their cameras, and giving them time and space to be creative. I sometimes have to pinch myself that I get to make a living doing what I love.
If you could have one super-power that could help you with photography, what would it be?
To bottle a moment completely. Not just the image, but the smell, the sounds, the feeling, especially moments that make you so happy and content.
Your favourite baked goods are?
It’s got to be a chocolate brownie (the more gooey, the better!)
Please tell us a little about yourself.
I’m an ex-Londoner, now living in South Norfolk. I love getting my London fix every month or so, but it’s always great getting out again and immersing myself in the big skies of East Anglia.
Photography has been a part of my life for so long. After I graduated, I started shooting weddings, but it wasn’t for me, so I gravitated towards working with local businesses, capturing products and headshots. I was then asked to run a three-day photography workshop by the Corn Hall, an arts centre here in Diss. I dug my heels in, convinced I couldn’t teach. But I did it anyway and absolutely loved it. I realised how much I loved nurturing people and helping them along their photographic journey. I’ve now been teaching for nine years and run photo walks, workshops and 1:1 tuition.
What I love most about teaching is how everyone approaches a subject differently, and I find it fascinating to see the same scene interpreted in so many ways. Watching someone gain confidence, experiment and start to see the world differently feels so rewarding.
I also work in marketing for a local hospice as my day job and was recently able to reduce my hours to concentrate on my business more.
I don’t get much time to do my own photography these days, but when I do, I love just wandering around a city with my camera, capturing architecture, patterns, reflections, light and shadows.
Aside from photography, I love to travel and to cook and to eat. I share my life with my partner, Lisa, and the past few years have felt very content (something about turning 40, I’m sure). I also love doing the occasional bold thing. In the past few years, I’ve done a skydive and an abseil, life modelling and got a tattoo.
Growing up, I was incredibly shy, with selective mutism, and I sometimes wonder how I got to this point – guiding others, having adventures and just saying “yes” to new experiences!
