Natsumi Penberthy

Natsumi drained her life-savings for an SLR camera at the age of 16 - and proceeded to tramp around south-east Asia and Latin America with it, finally losing it somewhere in Mexico. Then in 2010, despite having survived an honours thesis in political science at the University of Melbourne, Natsumi somehow found herself working on Australian Geographic magazine's well-respected picture desk. There she spent 18 months (six months as acting picture editor) searching out pictures and commissioning assignment work from the country's most sought after photographers and seeing literally thousands and thousands of images cross her desk. In 2012, she was offered the coveted job of AG staff writer, which is how she makes a crust today. Natsumi has worked as a picture researcher and picture editor across Australian Geographic, its calendars and dairies range, children's magazines and books, and their coffee-table tome, '25 Years of Australian Geographic Photography'. Her photos have been published in Australian Geographic, AG Outdoor and Eclipse magazines. These days, though she's often lucky to have some very talented photographers by her side, she always has a spare camera slung over one shoulder - just in case.