greta
high
Atlanta-based UX designer and photographer
ABOUT MEAs a photographer, I have always been driven by the desire to share genuine, joyful, unstaged stories. I would say the place where sincerity that is so sweet it’s kind of awkward meets just plain silliness is my sweet spot. This love of capturing real people and their lives has seamlessly translated into the field of UX design. Much like in photography, where capturing real emotions and narratives is key, UX design revolves around understanding and empathizing with users' genuine needs and experiences. Drawing upon my expertise in capturing authenticity and creating visually compelling compositions, my goal is to craft user experiences that are not only meaningful and intuitive, but also deeply resonate with users and bring them joy and connection.
When I'm not working on my next photography or design concept, you're likely to find me doing one of the other things I absolutely live for, including, but not limited to:
Reading novels and listening to audiobooks on double to triple speed (hello ADHD)
Developing rolls of double exposed 35mm film in my bathroom like it’s 1995
Going to concerts as much as my wallet can handle it
Laughing at inside jokes with my 2 kids who are better souls than I could have ever dreamed I'd get to do life with (and who are both technically adults now, what the heck!)
Being a foodie with my boyfriend
Loving on our three dogs Clementine, Jojo, and Charlie — 2 pit bulls and some sort of Boston Terrier mix, respectively
Dreaming about our next travel adventure
This is my favorite wedding photo I’ve ever taken. A decisive moment. The visual weight created by the triangle of mom, dad, and bride, and then how the triangles just keep on repeating throughout the composition. Like, it’s uncanny, the triangles. Also the Home Goods bag. The way dad’s one eye is so perfectly obscured by the bride’s arm in the foreground. The way none of them are aware of the photographer and therefore the viewer. I could go on and on. There is a specific image that made me fall in love with the medium of photography and its ability to tell a story in an instant and that is Pat Sabatine’s Eighth Birthday Party, April 1977 by Larry Fink. Well let me just say, this photo is my Pat Sabatine.
A triple-exposure of Amber in the woods. Or it may have been a stroboscopic double exposure. I’m like a kid making mudpies when I really get to creating. I just play.
Sky White of Foxy Shazam at the old Masquerade in Atlanta, 2009. See this band if you’re ever lucky enough to get the chance.
I love photographing shows at hole in the wall venues where there’s no photo list, no standing in the designated photographers’ area right underneath the band, no 3 song maximum, no posturing for other photographers…where you can just bring in a camera and as long as you mind your manners nobody cares and you can be an artist doing your thing while capturing artists doing their thing, and you’re just blending into a space and documenting what was just there, not directing anyone or manipulating anything. It’s very grounding to have an experience like that, that feels real and not curated to death.
PHILOSOPHYEarly in my photography career, I got this advice more than once: Don’t shoot everything. Specialize and find your niche.
I’m glad I spent the next 15 years ignoring that advice, because it helped me learn that my niche isn’t what I shoot, but how I shoot. My open-minded curiosity about the world led me to enjoy photographing all sorts of people with all sorts of reasons to document all sorts of things. The common thread that weaves us together is a free-spirited curiosity, meaning we all understand that the very best weird and unrepeatable magic is in the moments that rest between the ones that we’ve planned to perfection. For me, joy and art lie in letting things simply be. I approach my work with gentleness, patience, and adaptability. I describe my style as unfussy, approachable, and undirected. Consequently, you won't find my photos categorized here by the usual conventions. If my wedding photography resonates with you, you'll likely connect with my headshots and family portraits and everything in between.
Drawing from my extensive experience in photography, I've cultivated a distinctive approach to UX design. Much like the diverse subjects I've photographed over the years, I approach design with an open mind and a curiosity for the intricacies of the user experience. My work is characterized by its authenticity, a quality I've honed through my simple, user-friendly, and natural photography style. This approach enables me to craft comprehensive and empathetic user interfaces that seize the irreplaceable essence of each unique product and audience. With a keen eye for visual aesthetics, adaptability, and a dedication to making every interaction memorable, I bring a unique perspective to the world of UX design.
During the pandemic, I began shooting 35mm film again for the first time since college - color this time - and developing it in my bathroom. One day I went to Stone Mountain and decided to play around with some double exposures. I put the film in my camera and got to work. I felt completely free. There were so many interesting scrubby plants on the mountain. It all had this indescribable other-worldly look. I was super excited to develop my film and see the interesting layers and textures I was sure I captured. I went home, darkened the bathroom, pulled the film out of the cassette, put it through the different chemical baths, and after the final rinse, when I finally held the negatives up to the light, I was absolutely floored by what I saw.
The images in front of me appeared to be someone’s vacation photos, dated July of 2004. An overhead view of a dozen taxis idling in a parking lot. An older man smiling at the camera, drinking coffee at what looked like a table in a hotel room. Some sort of temple. And now these scenes wore the marks of time, with overgrown scruffy plants invading the edges of the frames. It was like nature had reclaimed the film after it sat around forgotten for so long. I couldn’t understand how this could have happened. My only guess is that another student and I switched film by accident in one of the shared darkrooms back in my college days. I reached out to some old classmates to see if they could help me unravel the mystery, but they were just as baffled as I was. I did at least get a location for the photos - Turkey. The contrasting scenery captured on the film highlighted the mix-up, but also the shift from a pre-pandemic world to the one I now knew. The photos with their bright orange digital timestamp of 2004 represented a world untouched by the challenges and changes that had emerged in the wake of the pandemic. It was wild, and still one of the best happy accidents I’ve ever experienced.