CARLOTTA LUKE grew up in Boston and Cape Cod. Her childhood included a stint in school in Paris and annual visits to her grandmother in Portugal. She discovered photography in her teens and immediately fell in love with the medium. Her high school years were spent working in the dark room. Carlotta holds an honours degree in Fine Arts from Wesleyan University. She spent three years in San Francisco, where she created huge drawings of the soft rolling hills of the surrounding countryside. She travelled in Central America as a photojournalist before returning to Cape Cod where she lived in Provincetown working for the local paper as a graphic designer. In 1990 Carlotta moved to the UK, settling first in London before moving to Lewes, East Sussex. She now divides her time between Lewes and Truro, Massachusetts. After 10 years working as an art director in a publishing house, followed by a Master’s Degree in Urban Design, she set up her own photography company in 2010. She specializes in environmental portraiture, architectural work and documenting the restoration of heritage buildings. Carlotta discovered cyanotype during the first covid lockdown and it was another instant love affair. Taking advantage of having to temporarily suspend her professional work, she did a deep dive into this technique, new to her but one of the earliest darkroom methods. Since 2020, cyanotype has become for Carlotta the perfect artistic medium, enabling her to connect her first love, hand printing, with her digital photography.