In Conversation With Hannah Bowker
- Emily Henman
- Sep 29
- 4 min read
Despite only being 22 years old and a full-time student, Hannah Bowker’s been making a name for herself for quite some time. She’s a photographer focused on fashion and portraiture, using strong attention to detail and artistic flair to create a striking body of work. It’s no wonder that this has caught the eye of several major modelling agencies across both London and her home town of Cape Town. Ahead of her last year at St. Andrews studying Neuroscience, we sat down with her to discuss balancing student life with her creativity, and her plans to move to London full-time.
Why and when did you start taking photos?
I started taking photos in 2019. My brother bought me a film camera for my birthday, though I'd never really shown an interest. I started taking photos of friends for fun, just at parties, and we’d do photoshoots beforehand. Eventually, one of my friends was gifted some bikinis by a brand and asked to do a proper shoot. One thing that I love about photography is how it can be a present to people. I genuinely don't believe that anyone is not photogenic, I just think that a photographer needs to know how to take that person's picture. I haven't met someone that I haven't been able to photograph. Everyone loves a good photo of themselves, especially when you get older, so it means a lot to be able to give that gift.
What influence has moving from Cape Town to London had on your work?
I think that being in Cape Town definitely influenced my photography style in the beginning. It's a beautiful city, so a lot of my work revolved around beaches, mountains and the sea. I had a gorgeous landscape and my friends there, so it was easy for me to get good photos. Moving to London, I've had to adapt because it's not as easy as driving five minutes with my best friend and having a beach to shoot on. This has definitely been a challenge, but ultimately learning how to adapt has been beneficial for my work. I know fewer people here, but London is a place with endless opportunities, so it’s just a matter of time before I make those connections.
Your work is primarily fashion orientated. Is that the field within photography that you're most interested in?
I try to take whatever opportunity comes my way as I’m still relatively new to this, but my favourite is definitely fashion photography. I love fashion, and I love being able to explore that through photography. I love organising the styling and creating a particular mood. There’s so much creative freedom. I’m interested in storytelling in my work, often exploring a certain message through a character, and fashion can help to facilitate this.
You've already taken photos of models from major modelling agencies in both the UK and South Africa. How did that come about?
By reaching out to people, I’ve found contacts from different modelling agencies that trust me to produce work for them. If I have an idea and need models, I can contact various agents and they’ll let me choose who I want to work with. The other day, I needed a couple for a shoot and messaged an agent that I know in Cape Town, and because they know and trust me they gave me a wide selection of people to choose from. It’s really rewarding knowing people that value my work, as the majority of shoots right now are portfolio building - everyone is working for free. So it means a lot that an agency will tell a model to work with me during their free time, as it benefits them as much as it benefits me. One of the most important things is building good relationships with people that trust you.
It’s unusual that you're carving this path for yourself whilst studying something vastly different at university. Where does your interest in neuroscience stem from?
I was always science-orientated at school. I did my A-Levels in South Africa, where you tend to be really pushed academically. I ultimately chose to study neuroscience at university because it felt like a clear path. Not only that, but my mental health as a teenager definitely played a large role - I really enjoyed studying a subject that helped to explain the behaviour I was exhibiting and what I was going through. I’m intrigued by psychiatric illnesses and how they are treated, because anti-depressants haven’t really changed since they first came out. As the child of an alternative medicine household, this really peaked my interest. The combination of psychology and neuroscience, through the lens of drug development, is still very important to me, and though my five year plan has changed a lot in recent years, I still hope to use this in the future.
Do you think it's possible to find an intersection between neuroscience and photography?
Absolutely. I want to take some time to give photography my all, creating stories that revolve around mental health and exploring how I can use fashion and photography to illustrate certain topics. In terms of neuroscience, my university dissertation is coming up. I’ve actually requested being able to do a dissertation on perception and memory, focussing on how people see themselves through pictures and how this can change depending on where they are. Essentially, how perception can change based on other aspects of how they are photographed. Another project I’ve been working on revolves around St. Andrews students and who they are outside of university. St. Andrews is renowned for being very academic, so I've been using photography to explore students besides their studies and shooting them in their homes - there are artists and painters and poets. I’d love to link neuroscience to that somehow.
What's next for you?
I want to explore more photography in St Andrews, and try to connect that to my degree. I’ve only got one year left, so I want to make the most of my time there by using the resources I have to create stories. This summer, I’m aiming for consistency in my work. I'm still exploring my style, so I want to carry on shooting many different things. Next year, after I graduate, I’m going to put my studies on pause. I’m going to travel and, for the first time, devote all my time and energy into shooting and see where it takes me.
Edited by Alyssa Erulin, London Editor
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