I always miss deadlines for photography competitions and prizes, when I was recently in Canberra, we went to National Portrait Gallery, where annual portrait prize winners and finalists exhibited. Damn, even one of my fellow photographers from Sydney that I know, was among the finalists on show. I could have entered this a few months ago with one of my works, even if I don’t get through it’s a good practise. Working on the concept, selecting the strongest image, printing, submission etc. But I did not, as I missed the deadline. As the saying goes, you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy the lottery ticket. I guess that’s my way of avoiding failure, not participating. No more.
I have committed to myself to enter 3 images for the upcoming Taylor Wessing Portrait Competition, to be held in London at National Portrait Gallery ( I’ve entered it once before, did not get short listed). You can apply from anywhere (does not need to be UK) and 1000’s of people do so every year, despite quite hefty entry fees, it’s equivalent of Cannes Festival for films or advertising. If you get shortlisted or win, you’ll be famous forever ever (or more like 15 minutes).
Deadline for this is early July so I still have time. I already have one strong portrait that I’m happy with and currently working on couple more to get 3 really strong images for submission.
Here is the shoot with Jackie I did recently, as part of the prep for this competition and hopefully submitting one of the images. She is an amazing dancer and I tried to capture that in the urban, gritty environment to bring out the contrast of grace in the dance versus the everyday life of the city.
Photo Competitions
Published May 30, 2012 Life , Photography 3 CommentsTags: competition, entry, national portrait gallery, photo prize, taylor wessing
Preparing for the exhibition
Published May 24, 2012 Life , Photography 1 CommentTags: 100 countries under 30, exhibition, photo, Photography, sydney, tap gallery, Travel
Hey folks, long time no see. I have not posted for almost two weeks, but the reason is very simple: I’ve been super busy prepping for my first proper photo exhibition coming up in the first week of August. Some of you got the invites already, some of you are 15000 km away so getting here would be rather tricky, but never the less, so far it’s been a very exciting process.
Finding the right gallery, selecting what to put up from over 25’000 photos taken, deciding how to print (matte or gloss, border on no border) and how to frame (glass, wood, foam board, clip board, pegs, anything I could think of) etc.
2 months to go and I think I’m in a good place. TAP gallery has been booked, final 100 photos have been selected, will print majority as A4 and 20 best ones on A2, to really get the impact. Finish will be matte and presented on quality foam boards to allow for various framing options, quite happy with the decision, but if you believe I’m making a terrible mistake and you have a better suggestion, please let me know, as stuff has not been printed yet.
Forgot about the final teeny weeny thing, I finally have a hefty budget estimate of 2000 dollars, what it will cost me to put up this show, so any suggestions on potential sponsors and partners that could help cover the costs are very welcome! Have a few ideas lined up already, but the more the merrier, wish me luck and for those who will be in Sydney in August, please do come down to TAP Gallery and say Hi!
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Campos experiment
Published May 11, 2012 Life 2 CommentsTags: campos, coffee, daily fix, love, mindshare, north, sydney
I am a sucker for a good cup of black gold, a.k.a. coffee, actually that was one of the three main reasons that made me decide to move to Sydney in a first place (other two being LAFHA – due to be cancelled in couple of months and the weather – got rainiest summer in decades). So one constant in my Sydney life for the last 12 months, that has not let me down, is a good cup of coffee, it has lived up to its promises to keep me alert and twitchy throughout the day.
Where I work in North Sydney, I have about 20 decent coffee places to choose from within five minute walk and I’ve tried most of them. The one I’ve zoned in recently for the last couple of months is Campos. Is it the branding, banter or the beans, not sure, but it draws me back every time. And what I’ve noticed is that I was not the only one, I can see on my floor alone there’d be around 20 people every day strolling around with the nicely branded green campos cups.
It was a shame seeing all those cups going in the bin every day, so couple of us (thanks Jo), decided to collect them and make something fun out of it. You may ask why collect empty coffee cups? But who needs why when you have caffeine. So off we went. In last couple of weeks I’ve collected around 40 or so Campos cups, mostly mine and Jo, but couple of other colleagues (thanks V, Ilana and others) pitched in as well. As my desk was starting to attract more and more confused looks I decided to create something fun out of it (to make a point) and then switch to more environmentally friendly reusable cups to get my daily fix (no worries, still with Campos).
Here are couple of the images, the title photo is just the Campos tower on my desk covering my laptop, then I did some more arty look here and finally asked my office gangster Dru to make some mess, so he did. What do you think?
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Studio fashion shoot
Published May 2, 2012 Photography Leave a CommentTags: fashion, model, mua, photoshoot, shoot, studio, sydney
Before every photo shoot, I have a certain image in mind what I’m hoping to get out of the session, and you know instantly when you get it (if you get it), it’s like a photogasm. This one above was that image. You shoot, you style you do make up, interact with the model, dance, sing, change angles, blow bubbles, shoot again, and then one second it just clicks, the camera is in the right place, and the hand is on the trigger to capture the moment you were after, when everything is worth it. Don’t get me wrong it is no uber statement about best fashion image ever created, it’s just a small personal victory that you need to keep going and confirm why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Have not done photo shoots in studio since coming over to Sydney, so was quite desperate to get the fix. It was really nice space is Rosebery, just begging to be creative. Will come again.
In four hours I managed to squeeze in the whole shebang, test the lights with my girlfriend (thank you Tasha), 2 hour sesh with model Martina and MUA Antonia (thank you for pulling off some amazing poses and looks), plus a quick portrait session at the end with Ayesha.
p.s. I’ve also updated my photography website: www.ivarsimages.com go check it out!
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bACK iN fASHION
Published April 24, 2012 Photography 1 CommentTags: central, fashion, industrial, Photography, portrait, sydney, vintage
After 2 months of hiatus (due to traveling, holidays and other commitments), I’m finally back to regular portrait/fashion photoshoot sessions. Here’s one I did last weekend with Francesca, at the back streets around Central and Surry Hills. One of my favorite areas to shoot portraits due to huge variety of industrial backdrops, quite allies and central location.
Francesca is also clothing designer, but this time we were shooting just some vintage stuff that worked really well within the environment. I’m increasingly finding that integrating some movement and little jumps in the otherwise static portrait really livens up the shot, bodies relax, emotions come out and the end result is more pleasing to the eye.
Here’s a full deck with Francesca. This weekend I’m going in studio for half a day, so excited, have not shoot studio in ages, will keep you posted about results.
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79
Published April 17, 2012 Life , Work 1 CommentTags: 1984, 50 years from now, 79. old age, future, life expectancy
As I was working on research for one of our clients, I came across a life expectancy calculator and that’s the number it came up with. Given my current lifestyle, social background, health, education, sex and income I can expect to live till tender age of 79, in other words, I have 50 years left.
Fifty years is a long time, and it made me think what I could do with all this time. And what the world will look like in 2061: how many people will live on earth (and outside), will the tigers and polar bears survive, would private cars still exist or everything will be linked up with uber efficient public transport systems, would there still be death sentences in US, will women in Saudi Arabia be able to drive cars, and most importantly, will there still be Facebook?
When you start to think in terms of decades, relevance of things changes dramatically. Will anything that you do at the moment still matter 50 years down the line, will it define who you are and where you end up in 2061. At the end I’m pretty sure whatever I can think up now, the future will prove me wrong, even Orwell’s 1984 (written in 1948) was nothing like the real 1984. Sometimes work in advertising can rise some deep philosophical questions:)
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Peek-a-boo
Published April 11, 2012 Life , Travel 1 CommentTags: byron bay, easter, gold coast, kangaroos, koalas, long weekend, Peek-a-boo, surfers paradise, Travel
Finally I got a chance to get close and personal with the most Aussie of all Aussie animals – koalas. We spent Easter weekend on the Gold Coast and Byron Bay, catching up on some beach time, family time and wildlife. Among the fun and games was a visit to wildlife sanctuary. It made me 49 dollars poorer, but it was well worth it, so much better than the zoos. I got to hang out with plenty of koalas (who were not too entertaining as they mostly sleep during daytime) and also lots of roos who were doing all kinds of weird stuff. Being used to visitors and no fences, they were blocking pretty much most of the walkways, just laying on their backs with legs up (like cats do, but just imagine 60 kg kangaroo doing it), eating from hands (like this dude), doing yoga (and this dude) etc. In short, plenty of fun.
Got some pretty sick aerial shots of Surfers Paradise beach, too. From the top of tallest building in the area – Q1. 21 dollars well spent,especially if you have a sunny day and zoom lens with you.
There’s nothing like a nice old long weekend away to recharge your batteries, hope you had a good one, too.
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SYD-SIN-CMB-BAH-DOH-KWI-DXB-MCT-DXB-MLE-SIN-SYD
Published April 1, 2012 Photography , Travel 2 CommentsTags: 100 country challenge, 99, maldives, middle east, Sri Lanka, Travel
Yay, I’m back down under, with 99 countries under belt. Only one left to go, and I still have 3 months to do it, magic.
As you can see from the title, the last mammoth trip was a biggie, 7 countries and lots of flights.
Some of the highlights: checking out some leopards from 5 meters away (in the wild) in Yala National Park, get mesmerized by Burj Khalifa (at 828m tallest building in the world) and getting lost in Dubai Mall (yes, you guessed it, largest in the world), snorkeling with sharks in Maldives, seeing green sea turtles hatch eggs in Oman, smoking shisha and drinking lots of tea in Qatar, lots and lots of elephants in Sri Lanka, hanging out for hours in Kuwait Souks (traditional markets).
Here is a quick photo journey from the trip to share with you. Have a good day.
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Oman – great expectations
Published March 22, 2012 Travel 7 CommentsTags: check list, fail, great expectations, middle east, Oman, travel tips
I’m normally not a party pooper and when I don’t have much positive to say I don’t comment at all. So this will not be about trashing Oman as tourist destination. This will be a check list that I would recommend for other travelers before heading here, to ensure they enjoy the trip (which, as you could guess, I did not).
1. Managing expectations – I was looking forward to Oman as a highlight of my trip around middle east, my expectations were high based on comments and reviews from other travelers. Whilst my bar for Kuwait or Qatar was really low, I actually ended up really enjoying the places, it was a pleasant surprise. For Oman it was the opposite, as reality did not match the standard – Green oasis in the dessert, amazing souqs, authentic…none of that matched it’s middle east neighbors.
2. Get a car. Full stop. Without it your trip will be ruined, as taxis end up costing you arm and a leg, whilst buses only ply couple of routes. Country, much like rest of middle east is built for cars, you have to drive to get to shopping, you have to drive to get to hotel, market, attraction etc, everything is spread out. I did get the car at the end, but I can not over emphasize enough how crucial it is.
3. Travel with someone/don’t stay in budget hotels. Decent hotels start at 120 dollars upwards, for 40-50d you get trouble and for 80d you can hope to get some sleep in basic room.
4. Tours are expensive, even by Western standards, most tours will set you off couple of hundred dollars a day. Just get a car and go see the sights yourself, unless you want to head out into dessert.
5. If it’s your first stop in Middle east, you’ll love it, if you’ve been to Syria, Jordan, Dubai, Turkey etc, brace yourself as Oman is nowhere near as diverse, unique or exiting, compared to some other nearby destinations.
6. Spend time, come to Oman for at least two weeks, so you have time to drive to remote locations like Salah or Matrah island, as that’s where it starts to get interesting, anything below a week is waste of time, just go somewhere else that is more compact.
So here it is, hope this helps some other would be goers to ensure they don’t make the same mistakes as me. I still believe that any experience is a good experience, but really, if you can avoid some annoying things, do it and your trip will be even better. Pura vida!
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A dacade of working
Published March 15, 2012 Work 1 CommentTags: 10000 hours, decade, malcom gladwell, Work
In todays trend of everything micro, here’s a thought for macro. I just realized that in March 2012 it has been 10 years since I started working full time, having a proper job in my industry so to say (summer jobs, volunteering etc has been excluded).
So what have I been up to? Of this last decade I’ve spent the first 3 years in marketing, then another 5 years and a bit in media, taking cummulative almost 2 years off in between for studies and travel. Not that you could not find this on Linked In, it’s still nice to stop once in a while and reflect. Actually the headline should read then “decade since started working”, but that does not sound anywhere near as exiting…
It’s been a good decade. They say (well, Malcolm Gladwell says) you need to do something purposefully for at least 10,000 hours (in other words, 6 years full time) to get really good at it, to become an expert. Meaning that by these standards, I’m half good at marketing and almost good in media.
What have I learnt? First, it does take blood, sweat and tears (and time), to get something meaningful done, back when I started, 6 months or a year was a lifetime to me, I was only thinking in weeks. Second, learn from people around you. Along the way I’ve worked with some amazing people that I’ve stayed friends for years. I’ve also worked with some lame people, that I was happy to get away from. But every experience gives you something to learn from so no regrets. Third, have a goal, direction, where you want your career to lead to, whether it’s a place, position or a company. It may not always work out exactly the way you planned it, but sooner or later the opportunity will present itself, you just need to be open to it. Like that saying goes, if you want to win a lottery, first you have to buy the ticket.
How was your last dacade, what you’ve been up to, have you put your 10,000 hours into anything exiting? Please share your journey and hope you’ve done the things you like, hanging out with people you like at least most of the time. Cheers for another good decade ahead of us!
