THE N-PHOTO INTERVIEW
Photography was the farthest thing from Carolyn Mendelsohn’s mind when she began her working life. Today, she is one of the UK’s leading portrait photographers, with an impressive list of awards and clients. Keith Wilson hears how the once reluctant photographer became obsessed with telling stories with her camera…
We don’t always end up doing what we thought we were going to do in life. Take Carolyn Mendelsohn – she trained as an actor, and with a passion for theatre became a director. Explaining her transformation, she says: “I started to use film in performance and then started to get commissioned to make film.” But even working with film didn’t seamlessly lead to the love for the still image that enraptures her today.
In an indirect way, Carolyn blames that on her three children. She continues: “I have three kids; Oscar is the oldest, and I would take him as a baby to the editing suites in
London, and it wasn’t ideal. It was when I had Poppy and Sam, I moved to a different place and thought, ‘hang on a second, who am I?’.” It was her husband who provided the answer: one day he gave her a Nikon D70 as a present, but even then, she kept it in the box under her bed.
Why were you so hesitant about it?
I was brought up in a family of keen photographers who documented every moment of my existence; every single moment a camera would come out at me and my siblings.
So, you were pushing back at the whole idea of photography?
Absolutely. I found it incredibly invasive.
