Photographer
Amber Rima was born to be a photographer – literally! Her mother is a photographer. “It meant that I grew up in dark rooms!” she laughs.
“ I did photography with my mom and then did numerous courses throughout my childhood, never with the intention of one day becoming a photographer but more because it was something that felt natural to me at the time” she reflects “I really was around it constantly”.
Her mother decided to move to Los Angles when Amber was ten. The effect on her photography was immediate.
“As a photographer you influenced by everything around you. LA is about beautiful things – both the scenery and the people who are obsessed with the way they look. In one aspect it’s extremely superficial but in another, it gave me a far deeper comprehension of beauty and to capture what is beautiful in someone beyond just the surface. Because I spent much of my childhood there, when I grew older as a photographer and a creative person, I needed a new challenge, new stimulation.”
That new challenge presented itself in a relocation to New York. Amber immersed herself fully in the texture and vibrancy of the city. If LA was clean, new and a little sterile, in New York she conversely found an organic richness, humanity and culture that stimulated her in a visceral, profound way.
Initially, though, wary of leading the life of a struggling artist, Amber worked in New York in the marketing division of a major record label. It proved to be an invaluable learning experience. Through hiring photographers to shoot the recording artists she worked with Amber distilled the essential do’s and don’ts of portrait photography.
“We would have to reshoot so many of the artists because the photographer couldn’t give us or the artist what we were after. Each artist is an individual and has to stand out from the masses, especially in the entertainment business because there’s always so much competition. It’s truly an art to be able to bring that out. That’s why you see the same big name photographers used over and over again. Without boasting, I knew from my own work that this was something I could deliver.”
Needless to say, when Amber decided to trade a marketing exec’s steady pay-check for the potentially volatile life as a freelance photographer, one of her first ports of call was her many contacts in the music business.
“I think the fact that I had been on the other side of the table and knew exactly what they were after helped immensely and immediately got me a lot of work” she explains.
As her reputation in New York grew, Amber found herself shooting for magazines and a host of private clients, many offshoots from her years in the entertainment industry. Influenced by the likes of Annie Lebowitz and Gordon Parks Amber, started to hone her own identifiable style.
“If you look at the great photographers and their work, it doesn’t date, it’s timeless” she says. “The reason is because they capture the very essence of what they are shooting that transcends time. It’s so important for me to really communicate and talk to my clients and get them to open up and relax. I think I’ve developed a real ability to capture that unique element in people that makes them special. To capture their true personality.
Adds Amber: “Generally when people come to me, they have an idea of how they want to be see themselves and my job is to give them that honest, true representation of their personality that they recognize in themselves.”
Interviewed by Jeff Vasishta
