Get some insight into our newest Pro Team member Emilie Talpin, and learn all about her passion for photography!
We have a range of different people on our Pro Team and collectively their talent is infinite! It's about time you got to know one of our members, Emilie Talpin, an amazing wildlife and macro photographer!
Was there a single event that made you decide to become a professional photographer?
In 2016, I moved to a house on a mountaintop surrounded by wildlife. I became fascinated by the buzzing hummingbirds in the garden and the moose lumbering down the driveway. Two years later, I decided it was time for me to pick up a camera and spend more time outdoors documenting my furry friends.
What is your favourite location to capture?
I love my adoptive state of New Hampshire because it encompasses everything in a small state: mountains, lakes, and the ocean. Everything is accessible in a short drive, and the wildlife rarely disappoints.
Social media – love it or hate it?
Love it when it is for the greater good. Hate it when it is unproductive or hurtful. There is so much good and inspiration we can take from social media, and I try to focus on that.
Favourite camera you have ever used or owned, and why?
My first Olympus camera was the OM-D EM-1 Mark II because it changed my life. It was so small and packed with computational features that I just started carrying it all the time. All these features helped to unlock my creativity.
What's in your kit bag?
For cameras: OM1 Mark II, OM 5
For lenses: M.Zuiko 150-400 for wildlife, M.Zuiko 90mm macro, M.Zuiko 12-100 for landscape, and M.Zuiko 12mm for video.
A flash (FL700 from OM SYSTEM) and the AK diffuser
For tripod: 3 Legged Thing Albert 2.0
For monopod: 3 Legged Thing Alana
For L brackets: 3 Legged Thing Ollie and Lexie
Name 5 essential items in your photography bag.
Extra batteries, WRAPZ, water, energy bars, and a notebook (with a pen attached, so those two count as one)
Are there any strange/unusual items in your photo bag? Household bits?
Gorilla tape. You can fix anything with it, even a coat if you get tangled in rose bushes. I carry it in my tiny EDC kit along with some other useful tools.
How would you describe your style of photography?
Nature photography. I describe myself as a B photographer - I like to capture subjects that start with the letter B, like bugs, birds, bears, beavers, and bubbles.
What is one thing you have learnt over the past year?
Follow your heart. I am about to leave my teaching job after twenty years to work in the photo industry and follow my passion.
What is your earliest memory of handling a camera?
I was born and raised in France a few kilometers from where Nicephore Niepse invented photography, but I had to move to the United States to discover my passion for such art. My more vivid memory is a recent one when, in 2019, I held my first Olympus camera, now OM SYSTEM, and instantly fell in love with the ergonomics and all the computational features of the camera. It was a Cinderella moment, which sounds clichŽ, but it's true.
If you hadn't gotten into photography, what do you think you'd be doing now?
I would probably be studying beavers, my favorite animal on the planet.
What is one question you'd like to be asked and never have been?
I am rehabilitating beavers, do you want to come and help?
What is the most random fact you know/love?
Beavers have a split-toe "comb" on their hind foot, which allows them to groom their fur. I think that is just too cool. I wish I had one.
