Katja Staple

Katja Staple

Credit: Katja Staple

About Katja Staple

I am a Kew local and member of this magnificent garden. Rather than a destination for entire daytrips, the garden is  a place where I come very frequently. I stay for maybe an hour to admire whatever is in season, get a break from my day to day or just read a book sitting under an exotic plant. Visiting it has become a part of my everyday life and a great place to recharge and recover. Sometimes I bring my camera which is a Nikon D850 with a 24mm - 70mm zoom lens. When I photograph professionally, I usually take photos of the corporate worlds, industrial processes and companies so garden photography is a wonderful and welcome change for me. But even then, I seem to notice the interaction of man-made structures (the greenhouses) with the natural world an how the Victorians used some of their industrial wealth to bring and celebrate plant life. 


My name is Katja and before starting work as a freelance journalist and photographer relatively recently, I used to work as a McKinsey consultant and then led a division in a tech company. While this life wasn't for me and powerpoint slides where not my natural form of storytelling, I did take from it a certain admiration for human industriousness and its wealth-creating properties along with its potentially more harmful consequences for human as well as environmental health and well-being. 


Professional roles: Journalist, Photographer

Location: United Kingdom