Rachel Bigsby Launches New Substack Exploring the Reality Beyond the Finished Photograph

Rachel Bigsby has launched a new Substack publication that steps away from polished outcomes to explore the raw, unfiltered reality of a life in wildlife photography.

Known for carefully crafted final images, Rachel’s Substack focuses instead on everything that happens beyond the frame: the uncertainty, risk, obsession and persistence that shapes her photographic work long before the shutter is pressed. The publication offers readers a rare look inside the lived experience of location-based photography, where planning often unravels in the most remote corners of the planet, where conditions refuse to cooperate and meaningful work emerges slowly - if at all.

Rather than serving as a traditional newsletter, her Substack is best understood as a hybrid of scrapbook, travel diary, personal journal, and reflective essay collection. It is a space where stories are allowed to exist without being condensed or polished for performance, and where process is given equal weight to outcome.

“So much of my photography is defined by what never gets seen,” Rachel says. “The missed opportunities, the logistical challenges, the failures, the waiting. These are the moments that shape the work just as much as the final image, but they rarely have room to be told properly.”

Published twice monthly, the Substack features long-form storytelling drawn from Rachel’s travels and working life. Essays and reflections explore the physical, logistical, and psychological demands of photographing in remote and unfamiliar environments, alongside practical insights into technique and real-world problem-solving developed through experience rather than theory.

A central thread running through the publication is Rachel's enduring devotion to seabirds; an obsession that underpins her creative practice and repeatedly draws her back to difficult, isolated places.

“My fascination with seabirds is foundational,” she explains. “They’ve taught me how to wait, how to observe, and how to accept that control is mostly an illusion. They’re a constant source of grounding and wonder.”

At its core, Rachel's Substack is both a creative outlet and a point of connection. It offers readers a direct way to engage with, and support, the time, travel, experimentation, and creative risk required to sustain her work. By subscribing, readers help make space for honesty, slowness, and depth in an industry often shaped by speed and surface-level consumption.

“This is a place for the unfinished, for the stories that live beyond the frame, and for a more truthful account of what a photographic life actually looks like.”

The Substack is now live and open to subscribers from £12.00 per month.

Substack: https://substack.com/@rachelbigsby