Lost in Translation

Lens Envy

Ivars Krutainis — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:34:48 +0000

Last weekend we ventured out to Manly beach, to see Australian Open in Surfing. I was planning to take some cool shots on my 200mm zoom lens of surfers doing jumps and stuff, but instead I got lens envy, standing among the big boys, with lenses 400mm+, so they can actually zoom in full frame on the surfers and capture the fine detail.
Damn, those things cost 10k a pop, and that’s just for the lens, add another 10k for the body, consider that each of the pros have two bodies and two different lenses in use, add other smaller accessories, that’s 50k worth of equipment standing there in the sand.
That would take me a lot of hours working in the media, but hey, as the saying goes, if your tool is not long enough, you just have to work harder, smarter and move it faster. So instead I was looking for creative angles and context, quite like this one.

Jurrah @ Redfern

Ivars Krutainis — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:49:01 +0000

Meet Jurrah, my latest model and participant in the 52 suburbs project. Jurrah is badass angel if there is such a thing. Judging from tattoos covering her body I assumed she’s as mean as my uncle, but once I met her in person (ok, actually as soon as I started to discuss the shoot details) it was clear that she’s anything but my uncle.
Jurrah loves to laugh and nibble so it was really hard to get a moment when she’s not doing at least one of those, but in the end we did get couple of the serious ones as well. We were shooting in her ‘office’, well more like uber-cool pad where people come together to co-create and have fun, play ping pong, sleep in hammocks, drive around bicycles and other random things, not your typical cubicle space. Thanks Jurrah for waking up nice and early on Sunday morning and keep rocking.

Will Samoa be the One?

Ivars Krutainis — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:55:22 +0000

I still have few months to go till my 28th July 2012 deadline for the 100 countries, but given that my next trip in march will take me to 99, I only have one country/trip left to plan. So far pacific island archipelago of Samoa seems to be the one with most brownie points.
It is independent country and member of United Nations (unlike New Caledonia, Cook Islands and other pacific bad boys); it has direct flights from Sydney that take 6h each way (do not need to take lots of holidays) and do not cost a fortune (600d return), plus it actually seems like a pretty interesting destination, both culturally (Samoans are curious bunch) as well as geographically (i.e. beautiful beaches).
I’ve spent quite a few hours researching the most exiting destination for the final country, but so far nothing beats Samoa. My ideal destination for the 100th country would have been one of the many special spots I’ve not seen yet, such as hiking in Nepal, playing with Gorillas in Rwanda or getting lost in Canadian wilderness, but those all are big trips that deserve special planning and attention, not something that is worth compromising for over few holidays left before July. Have a look at my country list, and may be you have better ideas, any suggestions welcome. Over and out.

Is there such a thing as too much kangaroo?

Ivars Krutainis — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:08:08 +0000

No there is no dancing kangaroo pic, but i did spend last weekend in Kangaroo Valley, eating kangaroo sausages, and seeing those lazy buggers on the sides of the road. Ok, I only really saw one live, 3 ‘watch out’ signs and couple of road kills, but I was told there are plenty of them around in the valley.
The waterfall in picture above was pretty spectacular, but my highlight of the weekend away definitely was mega carp I caught with rod by the dam, it was at least 5kg. My rod could only handle 2-4kg so I was very surprised that my mega fish was calm enough to stay on the hook, go figure. Thanks to team effort from Tasha, Ben and CJ, we managed to pull it off shore and even take some snaps, will upload the evidence soon. Ough what a day during weekend away.

If the road is not challenging, it’s not worth going

Ivars Krutainis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:50:16 +0000

I’m preparing for my last big trip of 100 country challenge coming up in March, a trip that will cover 7 countries and take me to the total of 99, I can smell the finish line, but I’m not there yet.
I knew it will not be easy or cheap when approaching the end, what I did not know was that I’ll be living in Australia, upss.
In march I plan to go to Sri Lanka, several Middle East countries, such as Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and on the way back finish up in Maldives. This trip will be by far the most expensive short term (less than a month) trip I’ve ever taken, not only flights are ridiculously expensive, I have no close by countries left, and those who are left are not only far but also require visas, which unfortunately are needed for Latvians in most Middle Eastern countries, even UAE (Dubai). There was a point when I regretted not getting UK citizenship and staying proud Latvian, after having that opportunity living 5 years in London. But that weakness is over, you’ve got work with what you got.
So now my focus for next month is to get 4 tourist visas via quite complex requirements to ensure the trip runs smoothly. Wish me luck, I will definitely need it. Will keep you posted how my preparation goes. And keep traveling, world is such a beautiful place.

Waran @ Potts Point

Ivars Krutainis — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:00:07 +0000

Meet Waran, yoga instructor, writer, dancer, performer and all in all a very nice person. Originally from California, but living in Australia for quite a few years. I had the opportunity to work with him as part of my project for Sydney suburbs. We were shooting in Potts Point which is amazingly chilled area with spectacular views of Sydney CBD, only few steps away from gritty Kings Cross. Waran had access to roof terrace where we could see all of Sydney’s down town as the summer sun was slowly coming down, most pics in the set where shoot against this backdrop. We even got some curious visitors in form of parakeets and cockatoo looking for some snacks, looked like they’ve done it before, unfortunately we did not have any food at hand.
Photo shoot was retro themed as Waran had quite a few pieces of original clothing from early and mid 20th century such as this navy jacket and cap among other things. So here you go, again, another part of amazing city that is Sydney. Here is full set from the photo shoot.

Tasmania without the Devil

Ivars Krutainis — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:44:36 +0000

Prior to going to Tasmania, a tiny island (actually Tasmania is slightly bigger than Latvia, 68k vs. 64k square km, so not that tiny) off Southern Coast of Australia, the only thing I knew about was the famous little animal – Tasmanian Devil, that only lives on this island. After 7 days on the island that remained the only thing we did not see in the whole trip. Funny how it works. But here is what we did see:
Amazing beaches – Wineglass Bay, Binalong Bay and many others, white sand and deserted most Tasmanian beaches are as good as they come, with a little bit of sunshine they are the perfect place to be.
Amazing wineries – we visited 3 or 4 of them, most offer up to 8 wines for tasting free of charge, my favorite was Bay of Fires winery. Also I totally changed my opinion about Riesling. In Tasmanian cooler climate they do it very fresh and dry, nothing in comparison to sweet stuff you’d normally expect from German/Austrian ones.
Lots of animals – dead and alive. There is so much road kill in Tasmania that it makes me sad, but that is just a further proof how healthy the eco system of this island is, as animals are everywhere. On our hikes and early drives, we saw plenty of wombats, wallabies, opossums and other random things, crawling, jumping and just sitting lazily around in the wild, its definitely their territory and we are just the visitors.
Art – MONA art gallery in Hobart is privately owned and definitely in my top 3 in the world, probably only Saatchi gallery in London would come close. If you like modern art, this alone is worth a visit to Tassie.
Food – there are some top notch eateries for foodies. We had steak from Black Cow in Launceston and it honestly is as good as any top NY or London eatery.
So that’s that, I can highly recommend visit to this far out place, if you get a chance to come to Australia. Here are a few pics for the trip. Hope you’re having good start of the year!

Wedding @ Wolfies

Ivars Krutainis — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:59:20 +0000

Last weekend I did something I have not done in a while, a photo shoot for wedding. It was last minute gig with not too much preparation and planning, but still lots of fun. Quite challenging settings, all indoors with limited natural lighting, continuous rain outside and venue at maximum capacity with not much room to juggle my camera and get the right angles, but think I managed to pull it off quite OK, you can be the judge. As always, for me the most exiting part is informal banter and emotions on the day, not the formal exchange of bows, but all has its place.

5 years of taking pictures

Ivars Krutainis — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 03:34:38 +0000

It’s been 5 years since I’ve been doing photography, not just taking travel snaps, but working with models, doing projects and assignments, a real deal so to say. Picture above is my first studio attempt I was really proud of, I got my then flatmate Mariola to pose for me. As it was my first time in photo studio on my own and it was her first time as a model, we decided to share a bottle of wine in the process, and 10 minutes in, wine became the focus point of the shoot, not sure what on earth we were thinking, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.
Also, since there’s nothing like a bit of statistics, I thought I’d share some numbers. In last 5 years I have:
- worked with more than 100 models
- spent more than one full year of travelling (and taking pictures)
- taken 56,000 pictures, on average I keep 5% or 1/20 pictures that I take, so in last five years I have taken 2824*20=56480 pictures, not bad.
- spent $10k plus on photo gear. Photography is expensive hobby. In last 5 years, I have gone through 3 Nikon cameras (D50, D80 and now D7000) and 10 lenses, whilst I still own 5 of them: Nikon 18-200mm VR, Nikon 50mm f1.8, Nikon 24-70mm f2.8, Tamron 70-200mm f2.8, Tamron 90mm f1.8, plus flashes, tripods, stands, umbrellas and other collateral
And of course, it’s all nicely cataloged in my Flickr photo stream, have a look at the sets to travel back in time.

Roller skating round Marrickville

Ivars Krutainis — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:05:59 +0000

On Tuesday I was roller skating with Shay. Well, more precisely, Shay was roller skating and I was taking pictures, especially trying to capture the awkward moments like falling, which she refused to do, so we had to fake it to make it.
Marrickville is one of my favourite Sydney suburbs as it has so much character. Like a safer and cleaner version of Hackney in London, but just as cool. If I could afford a photo studio it would be here. It’s mostly industrial, with lots of warehouses that serve small businesses during a day and throw a mad party during night.
My model for the day was Shay, who took me up on bringing something weird to the shoot, so out came the roller skates. That is something I’m always on the look out for, but rarely rely on. It only happens by chance and planning a roller skate shoot is like planning chameleon shoot. A year ago I posted on all kinds of pet forums for weeks to find owner with Chameleon who would allow me to shoot his friend, but no luck. So from that day on, I take the opportunity when it presents itself, but do not count or pre-arranging something random like that, as it never works.
Full set of pics.