I am a semi-professional photographer who enjoys taking photos of architecture, nature, and people, including fine art nudes. I love photographing in urban environments as well, especially old buildings and dilapidated industrial scenes. Shooting street scenes and candid people photos are also among my favorites. My eye is more drawn toward subjects that are darker and grittier, rather than traditionally beautiful and colorful imagery. Much of my work tends to be more abstract.
My first serious 35mm camera was a Nikon F. I eventually upgraded to a Nikon N80 35mm, then switched to a digital Nikon D80. Now I primarily use a Nikon D5000 digital camera. For many years I had my own darkroom and worked exclusively with black and white film. Even for nature photography, I find black and white to be the ideal medium. One can never capture nature as the eye sees it anyway, and black and white is an abstraction of reality by default. Now that I have switched to digital photography, I do color photography more than in the past but I still prefer black and white.
I am fond of taking self-portraits. Long ago I attended a Nikon School of Photography workshop. One of the professional photographers leading the class touted the benefits of self-portraiture. His argument was that you always have a willing and available subject, and it is a great way to work out lighting, composition, and technical details without exhausting the model’s patience. He said another upside to self-portraits is that you do not have to pay the model. I took that to heart and have been shooting self-portraits since my earliest days as a photographer.
I began my college years as an art major, studying photography at Arizona State University. After a while, I chose to pursue a career in electronics and software engineering instead and kept my interest in photographic art as a hobby. I had put my artwork on the back burner for several years.
I like photographing nudes of all genders, that celebrate the human form without objectification. I prefer outdoor settings over studio work for nudes. I try to focus that genre of my artwork on the connection the human animal has to nature, highlighting both the beauty of all body shapes and sizes as well as the scenic surroundings in which I place my models. Being nude in nature, exposing our vulnerabilities and imperfections, expresses that we are part of nature and we belong to the earth, not the other way around. I am also fond of erotic art but have not yet done any that I find worthy of publishing. I hope to in the future.
More recently I have had a renewed interest in getting back to my artistic self. This site was originally built so that I could share some travel photos with friends. Now that I am focusing more on my artistic endeavors, I have started participating in art shows again and selling framed artwork and stock images online. I will continue to expand the portfolios on this site.
More of my work can be found on my deviantart.com page, where I have posted over 400 photos. The links page on this site shows other websites featuring my photos.
All photos ©copyright Bill Natkin except where indicated otherwise. Pictures may not be reproduced without permission. It is a violation of Title 17, United States Code, to modify, enhance, or reproduce these images without the express consent of the copyright holder. To inquire about permission to reuse photos, reach out to Bill using the contact form on this website.