Interview with photographer Delia Sander
Today our guest is Delia Sander from Ventura County, California. She earns her living as a global product planner for a biotech company but she also discovered her love of the outdoors. We have conducted an interview with Delia about her experiences of the outdoors as well as a photographer.
Where are you currently based and what is your professional background?
I’m currently based in Southern California just outside Los Angeles where I work for a multi-national Biotech company. Growing up in Germany I decided to go to college in the Netherlands and graduated with a master in Logistics and Operations Management. I started working for the at the Dutch location of the Biotech company right out of college. About 4.5 years ago the opportunity came up for me to relocate to Southern California and take a job at our corporate headquarters. I am currently working there as a Global Product Planner which means I’m responsible for ensuring our product supply is meeting the market demands.
Which is one of the most exciting experiences of the outdoors? Where is it?
It’s hard to say there is just that one experience. On my first backpacking trip, friends took me up to the High Sierras just above Mammoth Les (CA). Even though I was exhausted, I fell in love with the High Sierras and have returned countless times to various locations since then. Last year I traveled by myself through Utah and visited its diverse National Parks. This year, friends took me along on a 3-day cross-country backpacking trip to climb Picacho del Diablo in Mexico. This turned out to be quite an experience! Besides the fact that there was no actual trail, lots of climbing and altitude gain, we were surprised with about 5in of fresh snow on the 3rd day (in May).
How much do you consider yourself loving the outdoors? To which extent?
I would say I’m living for the moments that I can be outdoors. The outdoors provides me with such a diversity – it’s not just the diverse nature but also the large number of friendships that I made with other hikers over the years. To keep track of all my trips, I created my own hiking calendar. At times, I would be gone every weekend for 3 months straight. Off course the type of trips vary from short/long local day/evening hikes, to weekend car camping trips and even a multiple week trip to Alaska and through Utah. I’d say my friends and co-workers are surprised if I haven’t been out at least on a short trip each week.
What is your experience as a photographer? What do you like to capture the most? How do you share what you have captured?
As most of us I owned a small digital camera and took ‘snapshots’ with it. At that time I did not pay attention to a picture's composition and what I wanted to capture. If I didn’t like the picture I could just delete it … After I relocated to Southern California for work and started spending more time outdoors I quickly realized that there was so much more to taking pictures. I upgraded to a Nikon 1 J3 and started taking it out on hiking and backpacking trips. My focus remains on landscape pictures; I just love the variety. Capturing that perfect moment takes time and over the years I have taught myself the finer details – but there’s still so much more to learn. This year I upgraded to a Sony a6300 and a wide angle lens which makes taking landscape pictures so much more fun.
There is still so much more for me to learn but I already love sharing pictures with others. While I mostly shared my pictures through Instagram and Facebook, I came across a new platform called ‘DimeFrame.com’ earlier this year. What I love about DimeFrame is that it does not use advertisements, tiered rewards, or ask followers for any commitments. It's just a pure relationship between viewers interested in my artwork and me. It gives people the ability to give meaningful support to an artist in a fun and inexpensive way.
Which is your favorite piece of photography equipment?
This year I’ve made the step to upgrade to a new camera. After hours of research, I decided on a Sony a6300 body. To allow for some diversity I opted for a Sony 10-18mm f4 OSS (wide angle) lens as well as a Sony 35mm f/1.8 fixed lens. I choose this camera setting because while giving me endless options and good quality it also was light enough to take along on hikes. With the wide-angle lens landscape pictures didn’t get ‘cut off’ any longer but allowed for a much more in-depth perspective.
More info:
If you like these pictures, you can follow Delia's work at: https://dimeframe.com/EQ13Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deliasander/
