Cultivating Inner Worlds: Interview with Natalie Wheeler
By Marquez Rodriguez
Finding your niche as an artist can be both challenging and deeply rewarding. Self-taught photographer and self-portrait artist Natalie Wheeler has carved out hers through what she calls “moodoir” sessions, an approach centered on liberation and self-exploration. Rather than traditional portraiture or boudoir sessions, moodoir photography invites participants into a deeper engagement with their inner world, confronting parts of themselves that may have been suppressed, overlooked, or never given space to surface.
Photo by Natalie Wheeler
Beginning in 2008, when her two children were babies, she started her artistic journey by photographing them in their daily lives. With little technical training and as a neurodivergent artist, she found it difficult to follow anything that required step-by-step instruction. Natalie adapted by teaching herself through trial and error, gradually developing a distinctive style in lifestyle and documentary photography that would soon be featured in stock photography, magazines, and blogs.
Photo by Natalie Wheeler
Around 2015, she did something she never imagined doing as a shy, self-conscious woman: she turned the camera on herself and began one of the most important journeys of her life in self-portraiture. Natalie would go on to deepen this work, experimenting with mood while incorporating a boudoir touch that leaned more toward sensuality than sexuality. This form of photography became a way for her to move toward the life she wanted, supporting both self-actualization and significant personal change. “I felt like it was like my safe space where I could be myself. No one else was allowed in that space. It was just me and my camera.” Natalie also reflects on how her self-portrait photography helped her become and embrace everything she was continually seeking, often at a very subconscious level.
Photo by Natalie Wheeler
One of Natalie’s signature approaches is creating a “ghostly” effect in her images by slowing down the shutter speed during capture. This technique emerged from her experimentation with slow shutter work at the Hotel Congress in Tucson, a famously haunted location that deeply inspired her creative direction.
Now, Natalie focuses on helping others feel empowered through their sensuality and embrace the depth and range of their emotions. She shares that in today’s world, she feels an even stronger pull to offer moodoir sessions, with the goal of helping people feel empowered in their own lives and inspired to participate and make a difference beyond their immediate surroundings. “You have to be empowered yourself if you want to start combating these horrible things that are happening outside your door.” Her passion for continuing this work comes from a deep understanding that art can heal others, and that simply creating makes you a positive force in the world.
Published by Natalie Wheeler on April 16, 2026
