Natalia Rifai, an art director, a photographer, a graphic designer, a web developer and an active diver. Natalia’s unique talent is recognized to touch other people through her photographs. Her unique blend of style can be traced to her multi-cultural background, and broad range of graphic and photographic experience. Her photographs are a journey of places, cultures, traditions, stories and emotions.

 

Natalia’s personal challenge is to create breath-taking images that non-stop impact people, fill them up with emotions and make them move deep down from inside. Visuals that connect people to the incredible beauty often passed by unnoticed. Images, which have something new to unfold each time looked at, a never-ending playground.

 

Born in Kuwait city on July 13th, 1981 from a Palestinian refuge in Lebanon father and a Russian mother. She lived with her parents and younger brother in Kuwait until they where obliged to leave to Lebanon due to the Gulf War in 1990. The unstable political and social situation in Lebanon and the region have left noticeable blue prints in Natalia's life. She, with compassion, remembers those days as days of opportunity, learning and growth instead of pain, fear, poverty and suffering.

 

Seeking her passion for imagination and visual arts, in general, and graphic design in particular; Natalia moved to Athens in 2000, followed by England. This lead her to having a Bachelor of Graphic Design from University of Derby, a Bachelor of Business and Management with e-Business from London Metropolitan University, and a Distinction Masters in Visual Communication and Interactive Media from University of Derby.

 

Throughout her studies, Natalia was introduced to photography and practiced it the traditional way capturing on film using a SLR and developing in the darkroom.

Her focuses on visual communication and its importance to business resulted in conducting an international survey and research on managing and leading creative people supported by ICOGRADA (International Graphic Design Association) and Computer Arts Magazine. Following her passion, Natalia created and wrote a few books which provoked her to masters the art of bookbinding and self-publishing.

 

During her stay in Europe, Natalia was exposed to various business cultures and widely divergent professionals, especially during her years working for CCC (Consolidated Contractors International Company) and her voluntary work for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

 

Seven years later, Natalia moved to live and work in Moscow. She had to learn the Russian language all over again. She was challenged to adapt and practice everything she had learned in Europe and The Middle East. Her varied career includes; varied graphic design projects, web site design, development and optimization, photography, art direction, visual strategy consulting, branding and advertising projects, book binding, artist’s books, and color perception and psychology lecturing, writing articles on Managing and leading creative people.

 

In 2009, during an adventure trip to India Natalia discovered and believed in her ability and passion to capture the extraordinary beauty within everything surrounding us. This is clearly felt in her words: “India was a trigger to fall in love with it all over again!”

She also discovered her enjoyment in interacting with living creations especially the tiny ones.

“Most people have no idea what it is like to capture macro! Even photographers don't! It is extremely hard work, but it is a parallel world, which is peaceful and full of surprises. It is full of life and balance. Beauty and wisdom. It is a gift of life, a reminder of the present moment, a bridge into the true meaning of a soul and the miracle of a breath.”

It was India that convinced Natalia that she could easily be a solo traveller. And since then travelling around the globe has became a lifestyle. Natalia enjoys reading books, wine tasting, cooking, listening to silence, and watching sunrises and sunsets.

 

It was in Moscow that Natalia learned to watch and wait on life. She learned to truly love and accept herself. Obtain a positive perspective towards life no matter the circumstances, let go, drop the judgments and become a happy person. She realized the power of her thoughts, emotions, intuition, belief and the present moment. Natalia believes that we are not physical beings born to have a spiritual experience, but rather spiritual beings born to have a physical experience. Her favorite affirmation is: “I’m realistic. I expect miracles.”

 

In March 2011, Natalia resigned from Aeroflot Russian Airlines and headed off to the Maldives, where she overcame her water-phobia and opened for herself a new world. She passionately declares: “I fear the water as much as I love it; but not anymore.”

Since 2012, Natalia is mastering the techniques of scuba diving and working with water and light by intensively practicing underwater photography. Every dive is perceived as a celebration, and awaited for as a feast. From her words:

“I don’t care about where I’ll dive. Each dive is unique even if I’ve dived here a billion times. The sea is very generous, purifying and full of surprises. Just don’t forget to say Thank You…”

Most of all, Natalia enjoys underwater is interacting with marine life. She constantly repeats: “You don't need to rush anywhere, a stone just under the boat even one meter deep is enough and full of life.”

 

Although Natalia has a wide portfolio of various kinds of photography, macro photography was always her favorite. She declares that one of the things she loves about macro and supper macro is being able to show a subject in a way you never could with the naked eye. In fact, many of her super macro subjects can hardly be seen without magnification. She often catches some of these subjects in her normal macro shots only to discover them when viewing the image on a large screen. It can be quite a challenge to find and photograph these tiny creatures, but interacting with them is worth living and breathing for.

 

Currently, Natalia lives in the world and proudly announces:

“I’m a citizen of planet earth! And I try to enjoy every bit of it dry and wet.”

She dives every moment she has the opportunity to and takes amazing pictures even in bad conditions or dull locations.

  

Natalia’s work and contacts can be found on her personal website:

www.rifai.ru

 

And her photos can be found on:

www.flickr.com/photos/nrifai/

 

Further on, her videos can be seen on:

www.youtube.com/user/nataliarifai

 

Photo Gear (tools):

• Canon EOS 7D

• Canon EOS 500D

Also known as EOS REBEL T1i, Canon EOS Kiss X3

 

• Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

• Canon EF 28-90mm f/4.0-5.6 II

• Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

• Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM

• Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5 x Macro

• Tamron Canon SP AF 10-24 mm F/3.5-4.5 DiII

• Tokina Canon AF 10-17 mm F/3.5-4.5 AT-X DX Fisheye

• Sigma 170-500mm f/5-6.3 APO RF

 

• Canon Speedlite 430EX flash unit

• Canon Speedlite Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX

 

• Adobe Lightroom 2.7 (mac)

• Adobe photoshop CS3 or CS4 (mac)

 

Underwater Photo Gear (tools):

• Ikelite housing for Canon 7D [IKE- 6871.07]

• Strobes: Ikelite DS-160 [IKE-4060] on Ultralight arms

• Focus light: Light&Motion Sola 1200 Photo

• 100mm 2.8 USM Macro: Ikelite Standard Flat Port with Focus (non-IS lens) [IKE-5508.45]

• Tamron 10-24: Ikelite 8"" Dome Port [IKE- 5510.45] with Ikelite Port Body [IKE- 5510.22]

• Tokina 10-17mm fisheye: Precision 5" dome - Precision Ike dome for tokina 10-17mm or,

• Ikelite 8"" Dome Port [IKE- 5510.45] with Ikelite superwide Port Body [IKE- 5510.11]

• Canon 50mm 1.4 USM: Ikelite Flat Port 2.5" [IKE-5501]

  

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Very thankful to all who has sacrificed the time to comment...

I try my best to return the favor as soon as I can :)

I encourage you to leave comments on how I can improve.

Your time and comments are much appreciated.|

 

All the images in my photostream* are copyrighted © 2010, 2011, 2012, & 2013 Natalia Rifai. All rights reserved. They may be downloaded and shared with others as long as you mention and link back to the source. They may not be used or reproduced in anyway without the author's permission. If you'd like to use one of my images for any reason, please contact Natalia Rifai

 

* Except the ones with portraits of myself. Those are copyrighted by their owners.