In Conversation With Nat McComas

In Conversation With Anita Ghise

 Whether Nat's photographing the ocean’s shifting light, the delicate bloom of flowers, or moments of quiet stillness within the landscape, there is a deep listening in the way she sees.

A reverence. A presence.

It is this devotion to the natural world - as teacher, mirror, and sanctuary - that makes collaborating with Nat feel like a dream - a meeting of kindred spirits aligned in shared philosophy and creative expression.

Today, we speak about Nat's practice, the ways she moves through it, and the rhythms that guide her creativity and connection to the inner and outer world.

Q & A WITH NAT MCCOMAS

 Q1 | Nature often feels like a collaborator in your work. What draws you back to the ocean, flowers, and landscapes as both subject and sanctuary?

A. I carry a deep nostalgia for a childhood spent immersed in the ocean and the quiet vastness of open landscapes — sun warming my back, hair salty and tangled from long days outside. My appreciation for the rhythms of nature and life’s simplest pleasures was shaped in those early years: camping, surfing, fishing, observing types of clouds, how the light shifts and the tides breathe in and out across endless summer afternoons.

Nature has always been my touchstone — a place I return to again and again to re-centre and reorient. It’s where I reconnect with the curious inner child who wants to explore, create, and learn without expectation.

For most of my career, I tried to keep the ocean separate from my photography world — preserving it as a sanctuary, a space to rest my creative mind. But last year, when I finally allowed these two loves to meet — to create Midday Galaxies — something shifted. I felt more integrated, more inspired, more alive in my work, and in myself, than ever before. 

 Q2 | Holding your own artworks within these landscapes feels symbolic - almost like a dialogue between inner and outer worlds. Was that intentional?

A. I think it was an instinctive attempt to step further into that layered, dreamlike realm I enter when I’m photographing — almost by creating imagery within imagery. So while it wasn’t overly calculated, the was a desire to deepen that sense of immersion and to make visible the layered nature of how I see and experience the world.

SHOP NAT MCCOMAS PRINTS HERE

Q3 | Shooting on film asks for patience, trust, and surrender. How does this slower, deliberate approach - along with printing images in the darkroom - influence your connection to the work and the final image?

A. It is, firstly, an effort to distance myself from the way I work as a commercial photographer in an increasingly digital and AI-driven visual world. And secondly, it is a commitment to slowing down — to staying connected to the heart of photography in all its anticipatory goodness.

Shooting on film and printing by hand in the darkroom creates space for error, for quirks of the camera — light leaks, scratches, print marks, inconsistencies. These imperfections make each image and print one of a kind. They become evidence of the intricacy of my practice: creating in real time, with my heart and hands.

Working this way is also a quiet rebellion against the speed and perfection of computer-generated imagery and AI-driven art.

Q4 | When wearing Blyss, what resonates with you personally? If you had to name the feeling, what is it?

A. Creative ignition. Expansion. Radiance.

The pieces are an invitation to my inner child - a signal to come out and drift into daydreams, following trails of thoughts for hours & hours.

Q5 | There’s an intimacy in lying in sand or swimming in the ocean, immersing yourself fully in the environment. How does this closeness shape your perspective and creative process?

A. This closeness grounds me. It pulls me into my senses and reconnects me with a deeper knowing. I begin to notice the smallest things; the way sunlight refracts across the water’s surface, or delicate dew drops clinging to unfolding petals.

Looking through my camera then becomes a meditation. Sound dissolves. My eyesight becomes everything — light, colour, form. I move into a space that feels both timeless and limitless. Beautifully dreamlike.

This is the feeling I want to create for others. Images that carry you into that same state — the bliss, the calm, the quiet wonder of being immersed in the elements.

Q6 | What is calling you more than ever this year, if anything? And do you have any projects or exhibitions coming up that align with this?

A. My creative channels are wide open at the moment - almost in an overwhelming, restless, ADHD kind of way. I’m learning the best way to move with this gift whilst also working full time.

I’ve started a journal of “parked” ideas so I don’t loose any precious thoughts or flashes of insight and this gives me space from feeling like I have to act on everything at once.

I am visualising an expansion of Midday Galaxies in video and possibly book form whilst also looking forward to furthering my skills in the darkroom - printing at a larger scale and selling limited runs on my online print store.

 Thank you, Nat, for sharing your vision, presence, and the luminous way you move through the natural world.

The Light Beings collection invites us to reconnect with the quiet intelligence within — a return to essence, imagination, and the unseen threads that bind us to nature and one another. Discover the pieces designed to move with you through this journey — at Blyss Studios.

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