Award-winning Australian photographer Nathan Penhall believes in the transformative power of imagery to evoke emotions, forge connections and convey messages that transcend language. His work as a dedicated photographer focuses on capturing the essence of Australia’s natural environment. Over the years, he has honed a distinctive style that celebrates the untouched beauty of Australia’s preserved beaches, mountains and forests. Through his work, Nathan aims to raise awareness about sustainability and the importance of preserving Australia’s pristine habitats.
The genesis of Nathan’s photographic journey can be traced to 2013 when he acquired his first Canon DSLR in anticipation of a trip to Queenstown, New Zealand. This pivotal moment ignited a passion that continues to drive his exploration and dedication to capturing the essence of nature’s most stunning landscapes. Alongside his personal pursuits, Nathan has fostered enduring connections within Melbourne’s building and landscape architecture communities. “My core interest is capturing remote landscapes in the natural environment. My compositions and editing techniques have been entirely self taught in this niche,” Nathan shares. “While I have always been fascinated by the finer details in a composition, the way I now compose an image has evolved to capture the holistic interplay of the contrasting natural elements. This is quite often achieved through aerial vantage points.”
NATHAN SAYS
“My style has evolved to now also capture aerial compositions in a more abstract art form. I have found that when a location is photographed in an abstract manner, it forces people to hold gaze and reconsider their perception of the environment around us.”
While Nathan became fiercely passionate about photography in 2013, it wasn’t until 2019 that he left full-time employment in construction management and registered Nathan Penhall Photography as a business. “Working in construction management for 12 years was a period of constant elevated stress,” he remembers. “I was craving an outlet that would help me decompress, even if that relief was only momentary on the weekends. Having a camera in my hand helped me create a deeper connection and gain a better understanding of the environment that I live in.”
Today, Nathan’s portfolio showcases a diverse array of images, each narrating a unique story and eliciting a range of emotions within the viewer. “Capturing cinematic-style landscape imagery from ground-level perspectives has brought me many years of enjoyment and is a form of photography that I will never let go of,” Nathan adds. “My style has evolved to now also capture aerial compositions in a more abstract art form. I have found that when a location is photographed in an abstract manner, it forces people to hold gaze and reconsider their perception of the environment around us.”
Among his most celebrated works is the “Ethereal Earth” series, which invites viewers into a world where colour, texture and form collide in mesmerising abstraction. This photographic journey into the pink salt lakes of Victoria’s Mallee region unveils the hidden beauty of an enigmatic landscape, captured from a bird’s-eye perspective. The images, shaped by the play of light, salt and water, reveal a tapestry of fluid geometries, delicate hues and organic patterns that are otherworldly. Each photograph is a fleeting moment frozen in time, a celebration of nature’s own sense of composition and design. The salt lakes, with their mystical pink hues, are not just a geographical feature but a living artwork, one that shifts and changes with the seasons. Through the lens, these vast, shimmering plains come to life in a new light — a delicate, iridescent ballet of nature’s intricate patterns.
Looking to the future, Nathan says he would love to leave city life behind and lay down roots in Northern NSW, where the natural landscape would spoil him with inspiration. “I have been approached by art galleries in several countries throughout Europe, as well as the USA, to exhibit my abstract works of the Australian natural environment,” he notes. “I would like to explore those opportunities.”
nathanpenhallphotography.com.au
This article is featured in Grand Designs Magazine issue 14.4