Emily Raftery

A photographer with a love for people and everyday life. Emily works primarily with natural light and intimate spaces.

Can you introduce yourself?

Hello, I’m Emily Raftery, a photographer in Tāmaki Makaurau. I work full time in my own photography business where I specialise in weddings, portraits and commercial work. I work primarily with natural light and humans. I try to avoid still life/product photography… so anything with people in front of my lenses and I’m happy. I also shoot a lot of my own personal work, which I shoot all on film and various janky old cameras.

What role does creativity play in your life?  

Creativity plays a big role in my life. I think anything can be creative – the way you make your tea in the morning, which mug you use, where you drink it, what clothes you put on each day, how you communicate, what you listen to, how you speak... It’s all a form of expression and we are all creative beings.

What I choose to create artistically, and put out there in the world, also plays a huge role. So my fine-art photography practise is my main form of direct communication with the world, but if you tune in and notice all those little subtle details, you’ll get what I’m really about.

How would you describe yourself as a photographer? What are you capturing? 

I guess I would have to say I am very relaxed and natural in both my approach and style of photography. I prefer to have a more documentary approach towards my subjects and the New Zealand urban landscape I choose to document. I like to

photograph people – mostly people I know, or sometimes it happens to be someone I’ve just met and something about them, or our interaction that inspires me to take a portrait of them. I also travel the country a for my photography business, so I love to document small town NZ. The often overlooked

aspects of life that perhaps will become a thing of the past one day. I like to document and record, making little memory keepsakes of times and places and people.

When did you realize that a camera is the right tool for your self-expression?

I started photographing at high school level, and then when I moved to New York when I was 19 years old I bought my first camera and really started to document my surroundings and families I was working with (as a nanny). It was definitely that magical vibrant city that really inspired me and cemented my love for the camera as my chosen tool of the trade.

It hasn’t left my side since, so that is nearly coming up to a 20-year relationship (definitely my longest relationship I’ve ever had in my life, haha).

What do you love about photography?

What do I love about photography? How do I even answer that question… SO MUCH.

A quick-fire list perhaps might be best: The magic. The science. The way you are capturing light. Recording light on people. The way I constantly watch how light travels around spaces at different times of the day. The sound of a shutter clicking. The romantic approach to loading film and winding each shot on. The romance of unloading a film. The excitement of fresh scans arriving in my inbox.

The amount of feeling and memory that can be loaded behind a single image, that can transport you right back to a particular moment in time. The tangible photograph you have afterward to stick on your wall and feast your eyes on every day. The whole process is just magic really.

What do you find challenging in your creative practice as a photographer?

I think what challenges me most is running a full-time photography business, and then trying to maintain my personal work and art practise for myself. Bills must be paid and ends must be met, so the work always has to take priority.

But if I could, I’d take a year off to really focus on my two ongoing projects… buy a van, travel the country, and document the shit out of it. It is challenging because it is an expensive art practise to be in. Film and then the processing of it is expensive, and the beauty/pain of working with old cameras is that they

can break quite often too…

Do you have a favourite photo series?

I have a couple of favourite series actually. One of my first proper bodies of work was completed in my second year at art school. I spent a year photographing friends of mine who were in a relationship, in their bed. I went around early in the morning when the light was just peeking through the curtains, made us all a cup of tea, and photographed them in the beautiful, hazy, sleepy morning light in all those sweet close moments shared between lovers. It was a study of intimate portraiture.

I also have an ongoing flirtation with bathrooms, and have been photographing them for years whenever I come across a good one. I really have no idea why… perhaps because it is another intimate space like the bedroom? I’m just quite

obsessed with them.

Is there an artist you would love to collaborate with?

I think it would be fun to be able to do a shoot of another artist. I don’t really have one person I want to collaborate with, but I would be happy photographing Iris Apfel, Cindy Sherman, Yayoi Kusama, David Lynch. I mean this list could really go on. Actually, Bill Murray, I’d really love to photograph him. Can anyone reading this arrange that please?

How do you sustain your creative energy?

Creative energy for me comes easily as I am constantly inspired by light and little every day scenes. I carry a camera with me at all times, just in case a moment should appear in front of me. I find conversations with friends inspiring, so I make sure I surround myself with good ones.

I take a lot of time for myself to read, watch, and listen to a wide range of things, from all different humans (not only in the art world) as inspiration comes from everywhere if you’re open to it.

What’s your greatest achievement so far?

I have really enjoyed every exhibition and collaborative magazine I’ve been a part of so far. I don’t think there is anything that stands out, maybe this is a sign I need to finally have a solo exhibition. I have had work up in one of the ministers office’s in The Beehive when I was at university. That was pretty cool at a young age to think of my work being displayed in a government building.

I’ve seen your collection of cameras. Some of them look pretty archaic. Do you collect cameras? Which one is your fave and why?

I would like to say I don’t collect them, that I just sort of seem to acquire them somehow. But I do have quite a healthy collection, all working. Asking to pick a favourite camera is like asking to pick a favourite child… I just don’t think you can do that.

I love my Rolleicord, even though it constantly jams and stops working mid-shoot. There is something about the TLR system that really appeals to my nostalgic, romantic heart. I love all my Polaroid cameras, as that is definitely my favourite film medium.

I recently purchased a Mamiya 6 (hello lockdown purchase) which is so sharp, and the lenses are just giving next level beautiful results, so I’m loving shooting on that at the moment.

Have you ever experienced tall poppy syndrome?

Sadly, yes. I think it’s pretty rife in Aotearoa. I have often dimmed my glow for others’ benefit, but I’m slowly learning to unpick that and keep my light shining to best reflect me.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?

That is a big question… no racism, no war, no violence, no hate, no poverty, no bigotry, no discrimination of any kind. Equality, freedom and peace for all. I listened to an interview with Nina Simone today actually, where she talks about what freedom means to her, and that it is just a feeling. You can’t describe being in love to someone who has never felt it, nor can you describe freedom. You know it when you feel it. I just really wish that everyone will experience all of the good

feelings in this world.