Natasha Navasardian

Natasha Navasardian is a street photographer who has exhibited at Awita Gallery in New York and Holy Art Gallery in London. She has been published by FStop Magazine, 101 Artbook Portrait, and Arts to Hearts Project. Natasha has also won two gold medals and a silver medal from the Indigo Design Awards based in Amsterdam. She describes her approach to photography  as “a way to connect—with people, places, and moments which might otherwise go unnoticed. The process helps me slow down, observe more closely, and tell quiet stories through light, mood, and expression. Photography reveals how I make sense of the world and share the beauty I see in everyday life”.

These unedited and unaltered urban photographs in Natasha’s portfolio reveal personal narratives hidden away through nooks and crevices in parts of the city. Her photographs taken in New York tend to be her strongest pieces because of the busyness and coldness of the area. Capturing in both black & white as well as color digital photography, Natasha portrays models integrating with the streets and shots of skyscrapers being smothered by sunlight, shadow, or steam from the sewers. Her most boldest models are definitely Julie and Anna, as they reveal a sense of character through their interactions with their urban environments.

The model Julie poses at parks and cafes, fixing her hair or walking down the street with her hands on her belt. She plays with her hair in a manner in which she lifts her shirt up revealing her slim stomach and tilts her face towards the natural sunlight, revealing a sensual posture. Anna on the other hand appears less feminine wearing a black leather jacket and dark sunglasses. She poses among the subway and graffiti-ridden streets as if waiting for a bus to take her to the next vital destination. Natasha’s capturing of skyscrapers being bathed in sunlight and smoke conveys her as a photographer who values timing as an integral part of her artwork. The gritty streets have marble on the side of buildings flow seamlessly with the curvature of steam from the sewers and the top of skyscrapers point to the setting or dawning sun with a portion of windows acting as a clever compositional anchor. 

Julie # 10 (pictured above) portrays the model with a serious urban expression as if she is looking into a stranger’s eyes in the form of the camera, sitting straight against the backdrop of an urban park. The cafes and skyscrapers behind her are revealed through a blur and the clever composition of the park benches and fences reveal a subtle ‘Z’ composition, although hard to notice consciously considering the fading view of the linearity. A distant yet direct psychological portrait of Julie, the photograph captures her gaze and environment to reveal her personality and thoughts towards the viewer.

Natasha Navasardian uses a variety of techniques including varying shutter speeds and long exposures to reveal the raw grit of the city. Her urban photography communicates psychological portraits with or without models due to her compositions and incorporations of elements such as smoke and light against the backdrop of the cold steel and marble of streetlights and skyscrapers. Natasha’s subways and graffitied streets look carefully selected for their sense of urban blight and rawness reflecting the characters of her models as well as the mood of the scene. A poignant photographer with a sensitive intuition towards her subjects, Natasha Navasardian brings street photography beyond urban iconography and towards a deeper conception by capturing the inner workings of civilization and characters who dwell on the streets.

https://www.nataly.app