Rachel Fowler, you most likely have seen her walking around St Thomas of Canterbury College with her computer in one hand and phone in the other. She always has a smile on her face and is happy to start a conversation with anyone.

Miss Fowler is the photography teacher at St Thomas of Canterbury College. She is 26 years old and has a design degree. She decided to become a teacher because she enjoys helping others and using the knowledge, she has to benefit others. She has enjoyed doing photography her whole life so decided to put the knowledge from her design degree into her photography career.

Rachel said in the interview “I enjoy the chemical and history side of photography”. What she meant by this is dark room photography which is when you develop a photo to look vintage. She also enjoys the “historic part of photography” meaning photos of ancient structures and people.

I asked Rachel why she decided to come to Saint Thomas and she said that her cousins had told her about the Samoan culture at our school. This intrigued her because her mother is full Samoan, so she was excited to teach photography to the Samoan students. She is also a catholic so that added another reason to come to St Thomas.

In the interview I asked her how to get into photography and make a career out of it. She said that the best way to start is to get on all the social media platforms and make accounts promoting your photos. You also want to do something new that no one has seen before to catch people's eye. Rachel made an Instagram account in high school and posted photos of her friends and family. She never made much money from this but got a couple of opportunities to be a photographer at events such as weddings and festivals.

During my interview I asked her how much longer she will be at St Thomas, and she said under 5 years because she wants “to move to Australia and get rich”. As of the 9th of November, she announced that she would be leaving at the end of the year. The reason being that she got a new opportunity at a school in Australia - Saint Lukes High School. The school is in Karratha which is based on the top left of Australia. She decided to move schools because this new job is giving her so many new opportunities and her brother also lives in Karratha so she will be able to reconnect with him and his family.

By Joel Proudfoot