Finding photography behind the lens of blogging
Spira Tlhankane | Friday March 11, 2016 14:57
It is difficult to become successful in the world of photography especially for self-taught photographers, but Lorraine Kinnear has proved otherwise. She started blogging in 2010 alongside a friend and they worked together for a year until she started to make a prospect and look the other way.
In an interview with Arts and Culture this week, the former stylist said styling was just a phase. “I realised that it was not something I was meant to do in the future. I then switched to photography on the blog level. As I picked up photography from blogging, I realised it was something I was interested in,” she said.
Kinnear said she is no longer into fashion as she was before. “I am now doing culture documentation, lifestyle, music and travel. Fashion is my background but it’s not my basis,” she highlighted. She said even though photography is part time, it is now what she does for a living because it pays her bills.
In the long run Kinnear intends to raise money through her work to uprade her equipment.
“It’s something I intend to do for the rest of my life”. The self-taught photographer said she depended on Youtube tutorials for everything. Kinnear said she went through the camera manual and it took her three months to operate the camera.
The University of Botswana Psychology graduate reminisced how she saved her tuition allowance to buy her first camera, a machine she is still using today. “Initially I wanted to use the money to build my own fashion line, but I chose to buy a camera and eventually work towards buying other equipments like lens,” she told Arts and Culture.
Kinnear disclosed at first she wanted to discover her real passion hence she juggled fashion and blogging.
She said since she embarked on photography, she travels a lot and finds inspiration in places she had never visited. “I think it will be of historical improtance to have pictures of Botswana in years to come. People can always reflect and say, oh, this picture was taken by Lorraine,” she said. The semi-professional photographer said photography is something that is close to her heart. “It was all trial and error because when Wendy and I started blogging we affiliated with Lapologa magazine, but as I switched directions I had to be independent and do everything for myself,” she said.
Kinnear, 24, who hails from Palapye, said she had to ask financial support from friends and parents. She said she is now running an online media publication called L’ecklect. Kinnear also said her blog is more like a media house because she documents events like Chillstep Sundays and writes about them. The optimistic lenswoman said her blog also reaches other countriesl. “It’s good for people outside Botswana to see what our culture is all about,” she said. Lorraine likes adding human element to her pictures. “A lot of bloggers tend to make blogging about fashion, but I take pictures that people can relate to. I want a realistic element to my work,” she said.
Kinnear was proud to have been featured in publications outside Botswana like Elle magazine. “I worked with Johannesburg Fashion week last year and shot summer spring collections,” she said. She affiliated to a company in SA and she gets invited to shoot live concerts whenever a foreign artist comes. In the future she wants to build her blog into a media house and hire people. “I have contributors but right now I don’t have money to hire people,” she said. In August,Kinnear will travel to Chile on a voluntary programme. “I plan to take pictures there and bring them back to Botswana. I am excited about it and it is like a human capital being taken out to Botswana,” she said. She said Botswana Investment and Trade Centre will make her a huge flag to carry to Chile. Kinnear asked Batswana to help her because she need funds to finance her flight to Chile. “I am still trying to build this and I wouldn’t want to ask for outside help yet,” she highlighted.