Hi, I'm Nami.
Believer, Mother, Portrait photographer and Educator. And the woman who has spent 15+ years figuring out exactly how to make any woman look and feel incredible in front of a camera.
I'm originally from Germany with Japanese heritage, and I moved to New Zealand alone in my twenties. I built my photography business from scratch in a small town called Raglan — population 3,000 — and somehow turned it into a career I genuinely couldn't have imagined at 20.
In my early thirties, I went through a season of losing myself completely. I didn't know my favourite music. Didn't know my favourite ice cream flavour. Had been so busy being everything for everyone else that I'd forgotten who I actually was.
Photography brought me back to myself.
And then it started doing the same thing for every woman who stood in front of my camera.
Over 1,000 real women later, not models, real women from all walks of life, I realised the thing I was best at wasn't just taking beautiful photos. It was knowing exactly what to do, what to say and how to move a woman from nervous and stiff to radiant and alive. Every single time.
Why I started Nami Creative Education
Two things were missing when I was learning photography.
The first was posing. Nobody teaches you how to actually direct a real woman — how to move her, what to say, how to make her feel safe enough to be fully seen. I spent years figuring that out the hard way.
The second was community. Real, honest, women-in-a-room-together community. The kind where you ask the question you've been too embarrassed to ask online. Where you watch someone else work and something clicks that no YouTube tutorial ever could. Where you leave feeling like you're not alone in this.
Empowerment is at the core of everything I do. It's how I teach. It's how I shoot. It's honestly how I mother.
I believe that when a woman feels truly equipped, when she walks into a session knowing exactly what she's doing, everything changes. Not just her photos. Her confidence. Her business. The way she shows up for her clients.
Photography education has always felt so isolated. You figure it out alone and hope something sticks. That's not how transformation works.
That's why alongside The Ultimate Posing Course, I run The Empowered Woman Photography Workshop in-person photography workshops in New Zealand, Australia and Europe where women photographers come together to learn, shoot and remind each other why they started.
ÂA little more about me
When I'm not shooting or teaching, you'll find me chasing my daughter Aiko around the world, eating good food and finding excuses to be near the ocean.
Aiko is fearless in a way I'm still learning from. She walks into every room like she belongs there. Honestly? She's my biggest inspiration.
I'm so glad you're here. Whatever brought you to this page — I hope it's the beginning of something really good for you.
