Born and bred in Nottingham, Tracey Whitefoot has spent the last two decades as a freelance photographer. In that time she’s photographed a lot of famous faces, as well as capturing the amazing cityscapes she has become known for. We asked her about her work and her exhibition, My Life In Light, currently on show at Nottingham Central Library…
What are your earliest memories of taking photographs? Where did it all begin?
I grew up in Chilwell and I’ve taken photographs for as long as I can remember. I got my first SLR camera when I was a teenager and started to enjoy taking pictures of my family and friends. My first job out of school was at a photo processing lab as a machine printer, and it was there that I learned the fundamentals of photography, light and colour. Photography was always part of my life, but until 2006 it was always just a hobby. Getting my first digital camera in 2005 was a game changer and really ignited the spark in me to want to take it further.
What do you think it is that makes a good photo?
Light is the key ingredient to any landscape image and the right light transforms an ordinary scene into something magical. I love being out at sunrise, which is my absolute favourite time of the day. The advice I always give to people wanting to take more photographs is to enjoy it. With camera phones there has never been a better time to experiment with photography, because we all have one. For me the science and theory of it all came afterwards. When I started to look at images that I’d captured that didn’t quite work and I wanted to know why. I still think this is the best way to learn. Fun and creativity first, the technical side later.
Tell us about your upcoming exhibition…
I hadn’t done a solo exhibition of my work since 2013, so a couple of years ago I started looking around for the right space. I was over the moon when the library approached me, and offered me their new exhibition space to showcase my local images. It was a lot of work to put it together and I am immensely proud of it. I can honestly say I smile every time I look at it, and I’ve seen it a lot. There isn’t a single thing I would change, which is a big thing for me today because I’m very self critical. Every time I go in I photograph the Visitors Book, and I have pages and pages of lovely comments, something I can look back on for years to come.
What decisions did you make to decide what went in it?
It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I had thousands of photos from the last twenty years, so in the end I had to go with my heart and choose the images that meant the most to me. I’d never shared the stories behind the images before, and I made the decision to do that for this exhibition. In the end that decision helped as I chose images where I felt I had more to say.
It’s far more than photography for me, it’s about connecting with the places I love and seeing them in a different light (literally) to what most people see
Do you have any personal favourites from the exhibition?
I love all of the images in the exhibition, but the two that are blown up to 3.6m are the ones that I love the most. Goose Fair is the image I’m best known for and has a real wow factor as you walk into the exhibition, but Narnia on the opposite wall makes me smile inside every time I see it. It’s my favourite image of all time and to see it blown up so big makes me proud beyond anything I can put into words.
You’re doing a talk about the exhibition at the library on Saturday 20 September. What can people expect from that?
I am indeed, and I’m really looking forward to it. I won’t have time to talk about all of the images in the exhibition but I’ll select a few where I feel there was more I could have said in the captions but didn’t have space. I also want to touch on my journey as a landscape photographer over the last twenty years and to get across my absolute passion for photographing Nottinghamshire and what I love about it so much. It’s far more than photography for me, it’s about connecting with the places I love and seeing them in a different light (literally) to what most people see. I love to share that passion through my work.
As well as your work photographing landscapes, you do a good line in portraits too.
Yes I do a lot of commissioned work in marketing, PR and events as part of my ‘day job’ as a freelance photographer. I’ve been fortunate to do some amazing jobs over the years and I’ve photographed a lot of famous people. What I’ve learned is that they are just ordinary people like us, and often they just want to talk about normal things. But it is hard not to get starstruck sometimes, as I did when I met David Hasselhoff at the Theatre Royal some years ago. I loved Knight Rider as a kid! I also photographed the Queen and Prince William and Kate when they came to Nottingham in 2012, and that job was anything but ordinary. I was the only photographer allowed into the Lord Mayor’s Parlour to photograph them signing the visitors book, and let's just say I have never felt the pressure quite like it.
Who else in the world of photography do you really admire?
There are lots of people I admire as photographers, none of them particularly famous or well known. I am drawn to the work of other photographers that capture extreme conditions or places off the beaten track, because that’s what I’d like to do more of. I have never been a particularly technical photographer, obsessed with ‘getting it right’, I’m more into following my heart and chasing the light when it comes to landscapes, so anyone that has a similar ethos is always going to catch my eye.
What’s next for you?
That’s a very interesting question as it’s one I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. I’ve booked another month away this December and January and I’m heading back to the USA and Canada. I book the flight and first nights accommodation, but don’t plan beyond that and opt to just go where the weather and mood takes me, so it’s going to be interesting to see where I end up this time. The wanderlust never goes away and I always just want to travel as much as I can. But when I’m not doing that, I’ll keep capturing Nottinghamshire in the way I always have.
Tracey Whitefoot’s exhibition My Life In Light runs at Nottingham Central Library until November 2025.
whitefootphotography.com
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