Netti Habel
Self-portrait, pinhole camera
Netti Habel uses photography to study, what she describes as, ‘our experience of place and time’. Her evocative and emotionally charged portraits portray both the uniqueness of each subject and their connection to a more-than-human community.

Photography enables her to capture a range of human emotions and their relationship to the natural world, saying:

‘My image-making draws on the uncontrollable - the earth's rotation, or the breath that might blur a long-exposure portrait - to capture observations of narratives and manifestations of the momentary.’

In her ongoing project 'I Cling to the Sky', Netti takes portraits amongst a range of communities based on and around Dartmoor, in the evening and at night beneath moonlight. Each subject chooses their own location and position in the landscape for their photographic shoot. Habel describes the importance of a meaningful site in the creation of this project as being about, ‘the multifaceted and dense relationships between individuals and the places they inhabit, addressing themes of transience and rootedness.’
    
Originally from Berlin in Germany, Netti Habel is now based in Devon. As well as her fine art photography practice, she also leads workshops in experimental photography. Habel was recently commissioned to produce the cover image for the solo album Lives Outgrown by Beth Gibbons of Portishead. As a student at the Cass School of Art in London, Habel was awarded the prestigious Owen Rowley Prize. She has exhibited widely across England in group and solo shows. Her work is held in private collections in the UK.

Selected recent shows and commissions:

I Cling to the Sky, display of twelve colour photographs, Royal Albert Memorial Museum (Ramm), Exeter, 2024
Owen Rowley Prizewinners Retrospective, show of selected prizewinners, Mall Galleries, London, 2024
Lives Outgrown, Beth Gibbons album cover and associated art, 2024
Hartland, Commission for North Devon AONB, 2023
Moonlight, Halsdon, solo exhibition of twenty-eight colour photographs, of The Plough, Great Torrington, 2022
Moonlight, Devon, solo exhibition of six colour photographs, concurrent with the above, The Plough, Great Torrington, 2022

BA in Fine Art, Sir John Cass School of Art and Winner of Owen Rowley Award, 2009

Work held in private collections in the UK and abroad.

In her former life, Netti was a touring aerialist.

All material published on this site © Netti Habel 2025. All rights reserved.