Spotlight: Bec Lorrimer

Bec Lorrimer is an international lifestyle, fashion, portrait and beauty photographer who is drawn to feeling, before genre. A rich and layered history that begins with cinematography, her work is renowned for capturing the authentic spirit and energy of her subjects, while maintaining an elevated aesthetic true to fashion sensibility. Bec is drawn to strong, confident women in her practice and she regularly works around themes of youth, motherhood and the evolving identity of women. Having lived and worked in New York City for seven years, Bec’s portfolio features an impressive international client list, including Uniqlo, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Mecca Cosmetica, and her editorial work features regularly in high-end magazines, including W Magazine, Porter Magazine, Elle US, Vogue Australia, Harper’s Bazaar Australia, as well as independent art publications such as i-D Australia, The Last Magazine and Primary Paper.

Your style of shooting is beautiful - it balances classic and modern elevated with a fashion/editorial sensibility, and feels entirely relevant, though timeless - was your style a natural progression of your work or did your work shape your style?

I’m glad to hear that’s your take on my work as it means that my intention is coming through in the images! My style has been a natural progression, as I imagine it is for any artist - each shoot informs your next. Often you just work with your instincts and make decisions based on feeling. So my style is quite inherent to who I am in that way. However I also set out to shoot positive representations of diverse people and celebrate the beauty in everyone. I love to capture joy, warmth and sincerity and this is definitely an intentional approach to my style.

Natural light seems to play into the strengths of this (your work) - and you're a master of natural light. Can you give us a few tips on your favourite way to shape or style light?

Natural light is my favourite to work in as it helps me maintain an authentic, real quality in my images. Great light can sometimes just exist and all you have to do is capture your talent in it. However more often than not, there is still hard work to be done to shape it the way that you want. One of the most important things you can do is to really look at the light and what your manipulation does to it - do the shadows become heavy in the eyes, is the talent under-lit, is there enough contrast or is the image too flat? The beauty of natural light is that it’s accessible to everyone and you can make something really beautiful out of black and white fabrics, cardboard, paper, or whatever you have at your disposal.

We're in awe of you being both a director and photographer. So we have to ask: Motion, Stills, or both? Do you find them to be complementary mediums? If so, do you have an example of where both have come together in your work you'd like to share?

That’s a tricky one! I have always adored cinema and the magic of motion pictures. I actually studied to be a cinematographer when I was at university and worked as a film and motion camera assistant for some years before moving full time into photography. At that time, the industry was nearing the end of loading 35mm film in a change tent (very stressful!) and digital capture was just in it’s infancy. I found the industry at the time very male dominated and extremely physically demanding, plus the shoots were rigid with not a lot of room for creative exploration on set. When I started working in fashion photography I really enjoyed the freedom that you had with working with the light, model and crew to craft an interesting set of images.

However now I work in motion and love it. I often shoot campaigns or editorial with both stills and motion, and both have their unique roles to play. I love stills as it’s quite a challenge to capture a feeling or someone’s personalty in a single frame. But with motion you also have more opportunities to tell a narrative and evoke an atmosphere. I shot stills and super 8mm film on a Vogue Australia shoot where our talent were actresses Lily Sullivan, Samara Weaving, Madeleine Madden and Ruby Rees. They all had such amazing energy that both the stills and motion were a joy to shoot with them, and we really just had a lot of fun with it.

What did NYC teach you (or continues to teach you)? How did it continue to shape you personally, or professionally as a photographer? Did it provide a shift in self or career?

Before shooting my own work in New York, I was the First Assistant to renowned fashion photographer, Lachlan Bailey. I worked really hard at the highest levels of the industry over there, flying around the world for Vogue Paris, Wall St Journal, H&M, Gucci, Carolina Herrera and more. Such experience allowed me to hone my aesthetic tastes, as well as connect with incredible artists who I continue to collaborate with and be inspired by. The advent of instagram has condensed our world so that, despite moving back to Australia, it’s still really easy to be across current trends and new work, as well as keep in touch with my international colleagues.

New York City is just such a hard place to live and work in, yet also the most fun! I always felt that you’d have your highest highs and lowest lows living there. One can’t help but grow as a person and an artist in a place that has so much culture, diversity, history and energy, and challenges you every day.

The authenticity and spirit captured in your images tips so beautifully and effortlessly into the feminine with subjects of motherhood, and the identity of women - at all ages. Is this a passion that has the potential for more personal work? Is there anything you're working on, for you, at the moment?

Yes I do love to photograph women in particular. I come from a large family of strong female role models and this does come through in my work. I am in awe of what the female body can achieve - growing a little human, giving birth, feeding that tiny person! Capturing images of motherhood and pregnancy are a particular focus for me for these reasons.

However I am also really interested in how advertising and more recently, social media, impacts our body image. Young people, and especially girls, have so much pressure on them to look a certain way, and now there’s often pressure to put images of themselves online. I feel a strong responsibility as an image maker in the creative industries to try to counter act narrow perspectives of beauty. I am currently working on a project exploring these themes.

beclorrimer.com

Ming NomchongJune 23, 2021