In conversation with Amelia Le Brun

Harriet: Amelia! Thank you so much for joining me on the Poppy Line. What a treat! Can you just introduce yourself?

Amelia: Sure. I'm Amelia. I'm on socials at @amslebrun, and I'm a travel and lifestyle photographer based in North Norfolk. I grew up travelling a lot, and we moved house every four years. So I've lived everywhere from Scotland to Jamaica to Dubai, Somerset, and I'm now in North Norfolk. 

Harriet: Is there a particular photo that you've taken encapsulate your style?

Amelia: The one that immediately springs to mind, I shot summer before last, up in Northern Norway. I was driving my 1976 campervan around Norway with my rescue French Bulldog, Porkchop. We sort of turned to live nocturnally because of the midnight sun, with the most beautiful golden light happening between 12 midnight and 2 AM. We were driving down a lonely road in the mountains, and there was some low fog on the horizon, the mountains peeking out, and the light was beautiful. I just grabbed this little camera here, which I have with me today. As I was driving, I just got a quick shot, fired it off. It was film, so I had no idea how it’d turn out, so I carried on driving to my destination to go for a hike. 

I sort of almost forgot about having even taken it until I got the scans back when I got back to the UK. It really embodies everything I love about shooting film, about slow travel and about living in the moment. I just snapped it, and I kept going, window down, music playing. And I think that really sums up my approach of embracing imperfection, rather than spending hours chasing the most perfect moment.

Harriet: Looking at your work, you seem to be drawn to small moments rather than the epic vistas often associated with mainstream travel photography. Can you tell me about this?

Amelia: When I was earlier on in my career, I was constantly chasing the big moments, thinking that the more epic the photo, the better. But I think that's not the case. A lot of people, myself included, feel more connected with photos that feel real. Chasing this magical landscape and standing for hours to wait for that perfect moment isn't really a true representation of how people experience places. I like the small imperfect moments that we often miss in search of those big ones, because I think life is a lot like that. Sitting down having a cup of coffee and remembering how the light hit, or jumping in the water and going for a swim, and sharing that moment with someone. 

I'm now much more focused on drawing the viewer in, hoping that they feel how I felt when I took the photo, and feeling really connected to the work. So now I do love big landscapes, I love travelling to amazing places, but I like finding the smaller moments in the big landscapes. 

Harriet: Is there a particular moment that you had on a trip where you felt like you really captured that sense of small joy?

Amelia: When I was on the Amalfi Coast in Italy a couple of years ago, and I actually went in the winter. It’s quite a contrast to the busy summer, with the classic sunbed photos. I was still in that phase of 'I have to get the landmarks' or those really big, special shots that scream sort of a location. I pitched up in Positano, with all the buildings coming down into the ocean. I had shots in mind that I felt like I had to get, and it threw me for a while. But what I came away with is actually one of my favourite shots that I think says a lot more.

Because I was technically out of season, it was beautiful. I think it's the bougainvillaea, this big beautiful blossom tree just arching over the lookout to the beach. I ended up taking a photo of the sun setting with the famous houses, but not how you're used to seeing them, with this big beautiful load of blossom coming over in the foreground. Just because somewhere is out of season doesn't mean it's necessarily worse or better, but it’s different.

Harriet: How do you find that experience of going somewhere out of the typical peak season?

Amelia: I love off-season. Of course, you often lose those extra hours of daylight and those long balmy sunsets, but what you do get is that lovely soft winter light. One of my favourite things to shoot is beaches and typical summer places out of season because the light is so much softer, the pace is slower. 

Cornwall is one of my favourite places to visit in the winter because you're not getting the crowds. You're getting often slightly rougher weather, which makes for more beautiful swell; it's great for surf photos. Everything feels more local, and that's something I often chase in my photos: that feeling of being at home in a photo. Not the big tourist spots. 

Harriet: You shoot digital but also on film, which is a much slower process. How does that compare to digital?

Amelia: I used to spend so much time looking at the screen on the back of my camera. I often found I missed the entire experience. People often these days see a scene through an iPad, through an iPhone, through a camera, and I found myself really falling into that trap of saying "Oh, just take one more, just take one more." And it was sucking the joy out of the experience.

Shooting film allows me to embrace the imperfections. It's always a gamble. If my film gets lost in the post, if it didn't come out, if I got my settings wrong... but it does allow me to slow down, take the frame, and then enjoy what I'm doing. Often, the photos I get on film turn out to be my favourite photos over any of the digital work. There's almost that feeling of scarcity and excitement. So much of it ties into slowing down, having to wait for your film to come back, having to send it off to get developed. 

Harriet: It sounds like embracing imperfection is a big part of your approach?

Amelia: I think it makes it feel more real. You know, you can retouch, retouch, retouch a photo and take out distractions and do everything until it's almost sterile. You can do that with film once you get digital scans, but there's something just about that added grain or the slight blur, or it not being quite right that makes it feel more real. 

I think in a world of AI and everything being at your fingertips and being perfect, film offers that step back: analogue, imperfect, but very real and tangible. I like tangible things.

There's one photo that springs to mind from a September road trip from Northumberland to Cornwall. I’d been shooting sunset, we cooked up some supper, and had a lovely time just watching the ocean. We were driving back to where we were staying, and I had the window down, and in a very movie-like way, I had my hand out catching the breeze. I grabbed the camera closest to me, which happened to be a little point-and-shoot digital camera, and I snapped a photo of my hand with the setting sun. It was quite blurry and grainy, but it makes me feel like I'm back in that moment. That salty air, the sun had just set, it was getting a bit cooler, and the way my hand blurs and the frame is blurred: it just feels imperfectly perfect to me and really reminiscent of that moment. 

Harriet: Slow travel often involves a lot of in-between time. How does this affect your process of photographing travel?

Amelia: It gives me time to relax into a place. I love spending extra days somewhere and going without a real plan, using the time to slow down and settle into a place. By doing that, it allows me to see much more than I would if I were just hopping on and off for a quick day trip chasing landmarks. Slowing down, watching locals, having coffee, people-watching, and just really experiencing a place, I think helps me understand the place I am at a deeper level and see things differently and more authentically.

Harriet: How do you relate to the journeying aspect of travel? 

Amelia: I love blending the journey and the destination. There's that age-old saying that it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. I think travelling by train, more slowly, opens you up to so much more than just that place. The whole journey then becomes part of the place and you almost get more for your money.

I recently took a scenic train journey across Switzerland. I was staying near St. Moritz for a while, and then I was staying in the Jungfrau region. The Swiss trains through the mountains are outrageously stunning, so I factored in a few more days to experience not just the individual places I was staying, but also the way to get there on these lovely red trains that cut through the mountains. I love shooting through train windows or car windows, and encorporating a part of travel that we so often rush through to get somewhere.

Jump on a plane, it'll only take you an hour. The train takes longer, but it then becomes part of the destination. As clichéd and cheesy as it sounds, it's something I think a lot more people are aiming to do: slowing down and experiencing one place more rather than just jumping from place to place. 

Harriet: “Authenticity" is a bit of a buzzword in both travel and photography. How do you distinguish between a scene that is "photogenic" and a moment that is honest?

Amelia: Such a buzzword isn't it? In a world of AI and this world of everything being very virtual, people do crave authenticity. Everything is cyclic. The return of analogue, the return of shooting on film speaks to craving things that are tangible and things that are real and things that other people feel like they can experience as well. 

For me, being authentic in travel and in the way I live is listening to myself and not doing what I think I should do, or what people expect me to do, or what I think I should do to do well on social media, or because I think this photo would look better. Trusting my gut.

Harriet: When you find yourself in a new place, what are the things that you look for to capture that sense of place?

Amelia: I'm very driven by smell. I think smell is one of the most nostalgic and powerful senses that we have. It always hits me first, the smell of a certain place. The hot air from somewhere tropical or that freezing cold, fresh, bone-chilling smell. Smells are good at transporting you somewhere new, or nostalgic, or somewhere that feels familiar that you've never actually been.

I was in Biarritz a couple of summers ago, and I shot a photo on film, just complete luck, from this little platform over the ocean. Mostly teenage children were jumping off this platform, backflipping into the ocean and splashing and whooping. The smell of warm salty air and sun cream and cigarette smoke in the air. It makes me feel like I'm back on that beach: people-watching, swimming, salty skin. 

Harriet: How you balance that desire to capture something and when to put the camera down and be in the moment? 

Amelia: It's a real learning curve, and I think it always will be, because I get so excited. I'm like a puppy when I go somewhere new. Travelling with my partner is a really good opportunity for me to slow down and see it through her eyes, a non-photographer's eyes. People who aren't full-time photographers or don't have that urge to document things notice things that I miss. 

I'm gonna be an aunt soon! Both of my sisters are having babies in the summer, so I'm very excited to watch them grow and take in the world, and potentially document them doing it. But also, to get back in touch with that childlike excitement. Just to experience things, not necessarily having to document everything, but to be present for them as well.

Harriet: Can you think of a time on a trip recently where you put down the camera to be in the moment?

Amelia: Probably a road trip up in Scotland with my partner. We went in May in our 1976 VW campervan, which in itself is always a slow journey because it tops out at like 50 miles an hour. The days were long, there were blue skies, and there was no one around. I just took that opportunity to slow down and not run around with my camera, but just lay in the sun, jump in the river, we played Scrabble, cooked on a fire. We did everything that encompasses the perfect slow adventure. Rather than focusing on always running around getting photos, I really experienced it.

Harriet: If you could board a train anywhere tomorrow, where would you be heading and what would you hope to capture?

Amelia: I think to Italy. It is somewhere I'm constantly drawn to. Mostly for the food. Exceptional food! Probably all the way down to Sicily. I think it would be an amazing way to experience the full length: from the mountains of northern Italy, down to the rolling hills of Tuscany, and then down to that coastal magic that Sicily has. Long golden days, the locals, the amazing food. I'd hope to capture that experience of the journey. I think Italy and Sicily really lend themselves to that slow way of life in general. They never seem to be rushing. Italians always seem to have time to have their coffee and to chat and to slow down. 

Harriet: Thank you so much for joining me in the window seat on this beautiful train, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the photos that are ahead of you. 

Amelia: Thank you for having me!

Harriet Matthews