New Zealand-based documentary photographer, Niki Boon found her voice through her camera when she began to document the lives of people around her. A self-taught photographer, Boon has learned through online courses, rigorous study of books about the history of photography, as well as contemporary photography. However, she admits that she’s learnt the most through trial and error. This approach has led her to win the People category in the International Photography Awards in 2016 as well as make it into Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 list. The same year, she won the Portrait category of Australia’s Top Emerging Photographers, and was a runner-up in the Documentary category.
It was with Boon and her partner’s decisions to educate their children alternatively that her portfolio of childhood documentary photographs grew to what it is today. “We are often asked many questions about what we do, and why,” says Boon. “Documenting their days has helped me to reflect on our decision.” Boon has very few photographs of herself as a child, and when her mother died at an early age she felt that she had lost many of the stories of her childhood. Believing that she could not adequately capture the stories of the growth of her children in writing, Boon turned to her camera to capture the fundamental moments of freedom, innocence, loneliness, and solitude in their confusing experience of growing up.
Boon’s ongoing personal project, On being 11, with her eldest daughter, documents what it means to be on the cusp of childhood and the next stage of youth. Continually focusing on aspects of the natural world that her children discover has also led to series of detail shots that highlights the interaction between human and nature. She hopes to soon move her practice outside of her family and continue to learn and document people’s experiences the way she has with her own children.
www.nikiboonphotos.com
