Noelle’s introduction to photography happened in the relatively recent past - in 2013 to be precise - when she was given a camera for her birthday. Because of work commitments she had no spare time for photography courses or the like, so ended up teaching herself. That didn’t phase her at all - she was just so excited to finally have a camera. Initially, she says, she photographed anything and everything - or that’s what it felt like when she was downloading the images from a photographic foray! Originally from the UK, she came to New Zealand in 2002. Now living in the foothills of the Southern Alps of South Island New Zealand and with a passion for the natural world, Noelle sees her camera as both her paint brush and her canvas. She uses a combination of abstract, impressionist and realist techniques as she seeks to produce a representation of our world and to share its visual beauty and its ambience. Noelle says that for her, photography is all about being there. Absolutely, it’s about what she sees, but maybe more importantly, she says, it’s about how the scene in front of her makes her feel. It’s not about the archetypal or conventional world view of things like beauty. She says she can find things of beauty in the unlikeliest of places - in the mundane, in chaos or even in tragedy. It’s all there, just waiting to be found. We simply need to open our minds as well as our eyes; to look, but more importantly, to see.