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!
Posts Tagged 'sydney'
Preparing for the exhibition
Published May 24, 2012 Photography , Life 1 CommentTags: Travel, Photography, photo, exhibition, sydney, tap gallery, 100 countries under 30
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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Jurrah @ Redfern
Published February 16, 2012 Life , Photography 1 CommentTags: 52 suburbs, Jurrah, photo project, sydney
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.
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Waran @ Potts Point
Published January 12, 2012 Photography Leave a CommentTags: 52 suburbs, photo shoot, Photography, portrait, potts point, sydney, waran
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.
Wedding @ Wolfies
Published December 20, 2011 Photography Leave a CommentTags: australia, Photography, sydney, wedding, wolfies
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.
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Roller skating round Marrickville
Published December 1, 2011 Photography Leave a CommentTags: 52 suburbs, living in Sydney, Marrickville, photo project, roller skating, shay, sydney
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.
Can you close that tap off for God’s sake
Published November 18, 2011 Life 1 CommentTags: art exhibit, free, living in Sydney, sculptures by the sea, sydney
It’s not that easy, you see this tap is a big bugger. That’s just one of the amazing artworks exhibited as part of annual hoopla in Bondi – Sculptures by the Sea.
Went there last friday, actually this post should have gone up a week ago, but as I was writing it, I dozed off. Waking up later that night I forgot that I was mid way before shutting down and happily thought that it’s been posted, only realized it now its been sitting in the drafts for a week. And week is a long time in this real time update world of ours. Nevertheless, the sculptures are still there this week, if Sydney local go see them while you can, if far away, just look at the cute pic and have a warm feeling in the left upper arm, at least I do when I see something l like. Have a great weekend.
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look mum no hands!
Published November 2, 2011 Photography 1 CommentTags: 52 suburbs, anastasia, look mum no hands, Photography, project, sydney, waterloo
What started as improbable gymnastics around old pipes in Waterloo, ended up with bike ride around balcony. Anastasia is my Waterloo model from 52 suburbs project. She’s originally from Ukraine, with 2 masters degrees, 10+ years of modelling experience and body of 18 year old. She’s fitness fanatic, that can bend her body in all kinds of random positions, 5 minutes into the shoot, Anastasia was like “I can pull my leg backwards up to my head, you want to see?” I had no time to answer, just keep on snapping.
All in all good times and a great session, besides the obligatory Waterloo landmarks and old water pipes, we also managed to squeeze in dress change and get some bored housewife looks, bike ride, and kiddie swing shot, all in about hour and a half, not bad.
Full set of pictures from the shoot can be found here.
p.s. there actually is amazing bike cum coffee shop in east London, called ‘look mum no hands!’, now every time I take a pic of someone on the bike, that is the first phrase coming to my mind, the power of branding.
