Carole Gomez

Our second photographer of the week is a young and devoted photographer named Carole Gomez. We are proud to have her as a part of our community and our featured photographer of the week.

My name is Carole Gomez, I am 36 years old and live with my husband in a small Hertfordshire village. I got my first "proper" camera, in December 2004, so I am fairly new to photography, and stock especially. My late Father was a keen photographer and had a darkroom at home, as was my great Grandfather. Perhaps an obsession with photography is a genetic condition?!

The two photographers who inspire me are Joe Cornish www.joecornish.com and the late Galen Rowell www.mountainlight.com . Both have such mastery of light and exposure, their work takes my breath away.

My main passion in photography is food. I am very keen on organic food, so the two interests combine well. I am interested in the texture colour and natural form of "real" food, so I try to shoot using only natural light (although I am discovering that this often isn't possible during the gloomy short winter months!). I also prefer my foodie subjects in their fabulous natural state. Muddy carrots and mishapen tomatoes are my ideal! Unfortunately perfectly shaped, squeaky clean and artificially lit/isolated food seems to have more "stockability" generally. But there is a growing interest among food writers and the general public towards more natural food production which will hopefully mean designers using less "plastic fantastic" food shots that have been titivated by a team of food "stylists".

My favorite shot of my own is the close up of my geriatric old cat. I like this shot because it sums up his entire life! And, although domestic animals ought to be easy to photograph, I have rarely managed to take a shot of him undisturbed. He uses the famous cat 6th sense to disappear when I'm even just thinking about getting the camera out...

I joined Fotolia pretty much as the site was starting out. I was excited that Fotolia would concentrate on the European market, which as far as I could see has been largely neglected previously. Translating keywords into several languages, and even just including European English spelling for keywords has got to be a major plus point. I am especially pleased that the management of Fotolia actively seeks out and listened to the opinions of their contributing photographers. Now that the live site version has settled in, I look forward to seeing the site grow and succeed.