Photography Educator: Natasha Lehner – LENSCRATCH

Photography Educator is a month-to-month sequence on Lenscratch. Once a month, we rejoice a devoted images instructor by sharing their insights, methods and excellence in inspiring college students of all ages. These educators play a important function in pupil improvement, performing as mentors and guides who create environments the place college students really feel valued and supported, fostering confidence and resilience.

I met Natasha Lehner a number of years in the past at Cassilhaus in North Carolina, and I used to be instantly struck by her images, her deep dedication to her work and the depth of her analysis. Her work sparks curiosity, with photographs which are each compelling and intellectually stimulating, inviting the viewer to dig deeper and keep longer. There is little question that she brings this identical excellence to her instructing. As a brand new educator in images, Natasha’s considerate responses to my interview questions reveal a transparent and beneficiant strategy to sharing her data. Her college students are very lucky to have such an inspiring and ahead pondering instructor.

This article consists of a few of Natasha’s work from three tasks, an interview and a small sampling of her pupil’s work.

Artist Statement
Photographs reside in a relentless state of flux, knowledgeable by their bodily state, the context of their discovering and the creativeness of their viewer. Images are a symptom of historical past, infused and knowledgeable by how we understand ourselves on the planet and our positions inside it. Cultural theorist John Tagg remarks in his essay Evidence, Truth and Order that “Photographs are never ‘evidence’ of history, they are themselves the historical”. This quote summates my perception within the energy of photographs as not solely historic artifacts however as continually evolving objects. 

The autonomy achieved by photographs as soon as free of their evidentiary context permits for endlessly recontextualized interpretation. This interpretive spirit informs my ongoing sequence In Waiting, the place I acquire discovered images and pair them with excerpts from Emily Dickinson’s poem I Sing to make use of the Waiting. The photographs on this sequence relate to one another of their explorative nature simply as the feminine topics appear to be looking out or voyaging in the direction of a shared and expansive future. 

My impetus for a bigger challenge, Iron Sights, was the 1874 transit of Venus. On this event, French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen inaugurated his invention the Janssen revolver, later often called the photographic revolver. The revolver captured the primary ever photographs of Venus silhouetted towards the Sun and marked the start of chronophotography. Jenssen tailored the revolving cylinders initially designed for a pistol to deal with not bullets however a sequence of sunshine delicate plates that may be uncovered in speedy succession. This curious invention ignited my curiosity within the parallel histories of images and weaponry, each technologically and metaphorically. I used to be particularly intrigued by the intervention of girls in these respective fields. Through using archival tactical coaching manuals and photographic information books for ladies, I generated a sequence of pointers for my photographs taken on the In Her Piece and the Women of Steel gun golf equipment in North Carolina. The ensuing images provide a up to date dialogue surrounding the facility of visibility and the positioning of girls inside the bigger histories of images and weaponry. 

Finally, there has by no means been a lifespan of photographs extra important to my observe than the images taken by my just lately found organic grandfather, Harvey Karman. Harvey was an inventor and a radical girls’s rights advocate who spent a lot of his life working an underground abortion clinic in Los Angeles previous to the legalization of abortion. He was additionally energetic within the rising discipline of fertility the place he gave girls, reminiscent of my grandmother, an choice of motherhood she wouldn’t have in any other case had. Upon discovering my organic grandfather’s identification three years in the past, I embarked upon a long run analysis challenge making an attempt to be taught as a lot as attainable a couple of man I can by no means and can by no means have the chance to fulfill. This discovery has launched me to a wholly new household and offered me with an awesome archive of his life via media portrayals, private accounts and, later, his personal phrases and pictures. Through the method of uncovering Harvey’s private writings and pictures I encountered a extra intimate model of this advanced man, one which reveals a shared likeness to myself just under the floor. From this materials I’ve produced a graduate thesis exhibition and publication entitled More of Everything. In More of Everything, I intertwine photographs and phrases created practically 70 years aside by my organic grandfather, my father, and myself to create an imaginative union of three generations that by no means had the chance to exist as one. Lastly, via using archival media supplies that includes my organic grandfather, I recontextualize the moral conversations which surrounded Harvey’s work as an abortionist in a contemporary framework, at a time when entry to high quality care for ladies is as soon as once more threatened simply as a lot because it was 70 years in the past. 

While these 4 tasks differ in material, they’re related by their investigative spirit and vested curiosity in discovering the world that lives inside and past the picture, the archival supplies structuring and informing the pictures I create in response. Lastly, and most necessary for me, these tasks have required an outreach and connection that may not have been attainable with out the participation and collaboration of group and relations alike. 

ES: Tell me about your background in images and the way you bought into instructing. Did you at all times need to be a instructor?

NL: Photography has been in my life for so long as I can keep in mind and that’s totally to my dad and mom’ credit score. My father purchased me my first digital camera from our native vintage retailer once I was 5 years previous. It was an Olympus Trip 35 that I nonetheless have and use recurrently to at the present time. To my reminiscence, there was at all times movie in arms attain and fixed encouragement to maintain photographing.

My want to be an educator can also be one thing I credit score totally to my dad and mom. Both my mom and my father educate English and from a younger age, I made up my thoughts that instructing was the one occupation that would actually add worth to my life. My dad and mom additionally confirmed me what it means to be a lifelong learner. They are each writers and artists in their very own proper and have confirmed to be uncompromising with each inventive pursuit that they undertake. I really feel extremely lucky to have the ability to lead by their instance and to forge my very own path with that very same spirit.

ES: Did you will have an influential images mentor or instructor? What was their largest impression on you?

NL: During my junior 12 months of school, I met a professor that may change my life without end. Her title is Rachel Boillot and she or he has been the guiding mild in life ever since our first assembly seven years in the past. Though, unbeknownst to us, our story truly began a lot earlier. In our first interplay, Rachel and I found that my father was her highschool English instructor. She typically remarked how acquainted I regarded and solely years later did we notice that our paths crossed whereas she was a senior in highschool and I used to be in preschool. If I used to be fortunate, my father would take me to work with him and once I did, I might sit within the entrance of the classroom and draw portraits of all the scholars. Rachel was a type of college students.
Rachel’s class was a revelation to me. In the few brief months that I studied below her, it turned abundantly clear that I used to be going to pursue a life in images with all my may, solely as a result of she gave me the energy to imagine I might. She has been a relentless supply of help and artistic inspiration to me ever since. I might solely ever hope to impression my college students in all of the huge ways in which Rachel had impacted my life.

ES: What retains you engaged as an educator?

NL: I see my instructing as being extremely collaborative. I typically say that I’m studying from my college students simply as a lot as they’re studying from me. And with each superb cohort of scholars I obtain every semester, this assertion is simply made extra truthful. I additionally imagine that my college students will solely ever be as invested in me as I’m in them. I work to strengthen connections with my college students and have interaction with their lives exterior the classroom to raised perceive what sort of contributions they’ll make within the classroom. So a lot of what we see is knowledgeable by the life we lead and I goal to rejoice all of the methods wherein we see issues in another way.

ES: How do you combine your expertise as an artist and the opposite jobs you’ve had into your instructing observe?

NL: Much of the time, a life within the arts can appear obscure, non-linear and extremely daunting. And whereas I do know the entire above to be true, I mitigate that as finest I can by giving my college students the fullest transparency about my profession and my trajectory. I’ve held a wide range of jobs’ helping artists, managing galleries, interning at museums, managing photograph amenities, helping workshops, directing submit manufacturing…the record goes on. I remind my college students that it’s only a invaluable to be taught and perceive what you don’t need to do as it’s to obviously see what you do need to do. I encourage my college students to strive every thing, to achieve out to everybody and to discover all choices. But above all, to discover ways to reside creatively. So a lot of managing a life within the arts comes down to creating the seemingly not possible turn into attainable and that may solely be completed by harnessing the identical creativity we channel within the studio and taking that out into the world with us.

ES: What are some challenges you face as a instructor within the arts on this second of time?

NL: I feel a lot of my college students really feel overwhelmed by the ever altering state of the world and wrestle to see how their photographs can exist inside our already extraordinarily imaged existence. We are surrounded by photographs that inform our lives each hour of day-after-day and what I inform my college students is that images doesn’t need to current a manner of understanding, however a method of understanding. If the pictures we make can assist us to raised perceive the world round us and our place inside it, that to me is the best triumph.

ES: Has your private work been affected by your instructing expertise? How?

NL: My college students have had extra of an impression on my private work than they are going to seemingly ever know. They are daring and courageous with their experimentations and endlessly stunning with their interpretations. They disclose to me my very own limitations I hadn’t realized I used to be imposing upon myself in my observe and assist remind me of the huge expanse that exist whenever you relinquish any expectation of end result and give up management over the method. True creativity entails a sure degree of uncertainty and my college students continually remind me to embrace that truth. 

ES: How and the place do you discover inspiration?

NL: I typically discover inspiration in probably the most unlikely of locations. I remind my college students that inspiration could be present in merely permitting your self to be receptive to the world round you. A 5-minute dialog with a stranger impressed a movie I made. A brief article in regards to the evolution of astronomical images prompted a whole analysis challenge. I attempt to permit myself to seek out inspiration in each scenario I discover myself in

ES: What profession accomplishments are you most pleased with?

NL: Two years in the past, I graduated with an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. My thesis exhibition, More of Everything, was a big kind analysis challenge about my just lately found organic grandfather, Harvey Karman. Harvey was an underground abortionist within the 1950-60’s and he additionally occurred to be a sperm donor. The challenge explores his life and complex legacy although it additionally celebrates the ever-growing household that has fashioned lately. In addition to discovering Harvey to be my organic grandfather, I found numerous half aunts, uncles and cousins which have all welcomed me into their lives with open arms. This challenge allowed me to forge connections with this newly found household and extra importantly, the chance to introduce my beloved father to his siblings. Many of those superb family members have been in attendance at my thesis exhibition and I couldn’t have been extra pleased with that second.

ES: What key insights or expertise do you hope your college students achieve via collaborating in your lessons?

NL: Above all, my best hope is for my college students to go away my classroom with a higher consciousness of the world round them. I imagine that images has little to do with the digital camera and every thing to do with the thoughts behind the making. I encourage my college students to activate their imaginative and prescient and discover charged materials on the planet that surrounds them.

ES: How do you assist your college students faucet into curiosity and the inventive course of? What are among the assignments that you simply give your college students?

NL: Many of the assignments I give my college students are deliberately open ended and extensively interpretive. This is in an effort to present my college students as a lot inventive freedom as attainable. The prompts need to do much less with a selected sort of picture and extra with a mode of pondering. I like to consider my assignments as thought experiments the place college students are inspired to  be far reaching with their approaches. One project I significantly like known as The Image Within The Image. As a part of this project, college students must work with and incorporate pre-existing photographs into their closing challenge. They should additionally show a type of re-photography or suave copy. This project is given largely to assist college students think about the bigger imaged world round them and the way they’ll reference pre-existing supplies.

ES: What recommendation would you give to images college students?

NL: Above all, my recommendation is to deliver your creativity out of the studio and into the world. Learning to reside creatively and discover inspiration all over the place you go will solely serve to strengthen your photographic observe.

ES: What is your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for images schooling?

NL: As expertise continues to evolve and the means of creating photographs expands, I hope to embrace the way forward for our discipline whereas additionally remaining firmly rooted in its previous. So a lot of our day by day life is knowledgeable by the historical past of images and my perception is that the extra we are able to perceive historical past, the higher we are able to perceive our current and our future.

Student Work

I had the pleasure of getting Natasha Lehner as one in every of my images academics throughout my undergraduate research at UNC–Chapel Hill. She is at all times going to be one of the inspiring academics I’ve ever had. She has a particular skill to encourage her college students, not solely via her instructing, however via the way in which she encourages you to belief your instincts and comply with your inventive eye. She pushed me to assume extra deeply about my work and to discover prospects inside my images that I hadn’t thought-about earlier than. I took a lot away from her class, and her steering and encouragement had a long-lasting impression on me, finally inspiring me to proceed pursuing images in addition to digital design. Natasha is an extremely gifted, considerate, and impactful instructor. I really feel really grateful to have discovered from her.

Maura Trivette
Instagram: @mauratrivetteeeee

Natasha taught my digital images I class. I got here in with a love for taking footage and I left feeling armed with the technical data to again it up. She lovingly challenged me to step away from what I used to be comfy with as a way to dig deeper into what my footage really imply, and to begin determining what’s necessary to me to say.

Meg Simmons
Instagram: @megsf1lm

Natasha Lehner was an distinctive professor throughout my time at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her images class offered me with inspiration and help in executing a few of my proudest tasks to date in undergrad. Every step of the way in which, Natasha offered encouragement and recommendation, permitting me to do no matter I wanted to create the tasks I desired. She allowed her college students to step exterior of the field, permitting us to create tasks that matched our pursuits, budgets, and objectives as artists. While I might have beloved to have one other class along with her throughout her time at UNC, her instructing has pushed me to assume in another way in my different lessons. I maintain her in excessive regard as a professor and an inspiration.

Paige East
Instagram: @loubird_makes

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About Natasha
Natasha Lehner (b.1998) is a photographer and educator from Pound Ridge, NY. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design and Photography from Belmont University (2020) and an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University (2024). She presently resides in Greensboro, NC the place she is a Visiting Lecturer in Photography at Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She can also be the Studio Manager in Photography on the University of North Carolina Greensboro. In 2024, Natasha was named the Teaching Fellow in Visual Arts at Duke University in addition to the Graduate Arts Fellow on the Kenan Institute of Ethics. She is a two time Duke University Dean’s Research Award recipient and the Spring 2023 Student Film Photo Award recipient for her graduate thesis challenge. Her work has been exhibited at venues together with the Southeastern Center for Photography, Cassilhaus, SRO Gallery at Texas Tech University, Koehane-Kenan Gallery at Duke University and Leu Art Gallery at Belmont University.

Upcoming News: Natasha has just lately accepted an Assistant Professor in Photography place from Wesleyan College in Macon, GA. Her latest works can be exhibited this fall within the McCrary Art Gallery at Wesleyan College.
Website: www.natashalehner.com
IG: @tashwl