Olja Sofronijevic Art & Photography

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Photography practise and begining memories part 1

Every person that likes photography has this need to catch beautiful moment, landscape or just different angle on something they think is interesting. Let's call it "just have to click" moment.

The best thing about it is that every one of us has their own way of looking and interpreting the beauty.

Later on some of the photography lovers decide to go professional and chose one or two fields that attract them the most and they stay on the path of perfecting it but these "just have to click" moments are always there.

Even though they are more frequent when you are still exploring your photography you can never stop just having to click those beautiful things that you see.

Here are some of mine "just have to click" moments

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Portfolio advice ;)

Hi everyone,

Do you ever get this feeling that even when you are satisfied with your progress and level of your photography somehow it's still never good enough.

You look at the magazines, your role model photographers and keep wandering, what's missing, what do they have that I don't?

Well, I had same thoughts recently and I would like to share some conclusions I reached.

First, this kind of thinking can be good and bad. As long as you keep thinking that you can do better, that's obviously good. Learning is a never ending process.
But, it can also happen, like it happened to me when i wanted to make my first website, that you need to chose some of your work for your portfolio and by comparing it with onlines best of the best, anything you chose is not good enough.

So you end up making more free shoots and despairing, shooting, despairing... One year later you still don't have a web portfolio and still no clients cause nobody knows you exist.

Quite a bad approach.

The right way is somewhere in between but before I tell you what by my opinion is good way to go first I want you to remember this.

When you're looking at the work of some of your favorite photographers or when you're googling out all these famous photos just remember

- These photographers have a lot of experience and those photos are usually product of years and years of work.
- They will chose only certain shoots and only 1-2 photos from each, so this is their best of and you can not compare it with every photo you make.
- Budget. Even there are so many amazing things you can do on a low budget you can not recreate and compare with high budget set-ups. Even if you are very good at Photoshop (you can get some amasing results by compositing) but the end result will never look like high budget set up.

So after looking back on my own mistakes I realized that seeking perfection is lifetime process, and every learning process is valuable.

Chose the photos that you like the most and make that portfolio, share them with others and shere your experience. Opening yourself to others is a great way to learn as well.
Listen to the criticism as well as the praises.
Advertise as much as possible. No metter the level of your photography there are always people that will be happy to work with you but they need to know you exist.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Professional enough?

Hello everyone :)

When I started this blog I was so happy about it, I was going around and telling people "Hey I finally have my own blog, check it out..." But the advices and feedback that I received where completely different than I expected, actually so different that I stopped writing.

Most common reaction was something like: "Great, I'm glad to hear that, BUT you should first read some of the famous bloggers before you start writing, or you should wright only about your work nothing private, update your blog at least 3 times a weak that's proved recipe, watch about your language it should be official but not too much official, NEVER say any bad word, blog is part of your online portfolio it need's to be professional....

With all due respect, I know that all these people had good intentions but FUCK THAT !!!

Professional, what does that mean in today's world? So if the person follows or more common today copy - paste all these rules in their CV, web site, blog... this person is considered professional? Since when is being your self not professional?

Ok, let me rethink, maybe I misunderstood the meaning of this word professional? When we work with other people we all have something to give and we want something in return, service for money, money for service, knowledge for favor... So for me being professional (referring to business relationships) means reaching the goal that benefits both sides in the manner that is pleasant for all people involved. That's why I follow some of those rules like, I want be late, I will be clean and nicely dressed, I will speak nicely so everyone can understand, I will follow the deal, finish the job on time... and everyone will be happy. If we avoid these kind of rules than it will be unpleasant for the people that are working with us so that's why they exist.
But when it comes to writing your own blog, portfolio, CV, I think people should be more what they really are because at the end we are working, functioning, depending on the other people. Sooner or later we see trough these words and by my experience so far I haven't met many people that really are what they wrote about themselves. So I was just wasting my time.

Ok, now many of you will say but professional sometimes refer to a person that is just good at his/her work. I completely agree with that. For last three years in Dubai I met only few people that where really, really good at photography but they never said this word about their work or themselves. You could just see it from their deed's and others people respect.
Like Margaret Thatcher would say if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretth109592.html#38s5DkkMUeCubxFl.99

Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/margaret_thatcher.html#jidJfQ7bl9Odb9IR.99

The truth is that most of the people will create certain picture by reading your posts, blogs, by looking at your pictures, but when they finally meet you, will they be disappointed or not, depends
only on the fact how truth or false you picture is.

I know it's impossible but I'm just wandering wouldn't it be easier for everyone if we all just cut the crap and be ourselves in social media, public, private... we are all people and we all want acceptance but how can YOU be accepted if what you are presenting its not you?

Sunday, May 5, 2013

UAE fashion photographers for inspiration

As an abstract and conceptual photographer I was searching for exceptions, small details that will show the bigger image, scene that will tell a story, art and mystery in simple things that can awake imagination.
Since I completely fell in love with fashion photography 2 years ago and I'm trying to build my self in that direction, my focus shifted on other things. Fashion, beauty, makeup, hair styles are dictating the story and present center of our inspiration.
This is why many fashion photographers, including my self, satisfy their hunger by searching new trends, collections, designers and most important work of their colleagues that gives them inspiration.

If I take a look at the world scene I can name many photographers that are so great, simply best of the best in this field but this is the subject for another post.
First I would like to start to present some amazing fashion photographers that work in UAE, whose work always gives me a blast of inspiration and encourage me to work more and more...

Click on the name to see the web site

Peter Richweisz