January wrap-up (and Enjoyments)

I had to sit down and finally write this post otherwise I wouldn’t get a restful sleep. I decided to combine it with the so-called Enjoyments (totally stolen from Charlie McDonnel’s video) and share things I liked and/or discovered in January. Since I haven’t done much photography, I thought I would be a good idea to fill this post with something more informative.

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But firstly - holidays. I went back to Ukraine for the Christmas holidays, even though by the time Ukrainian Christmas came (the 7th of Jan.) I was already in Vienna finishing all the deadlines and studying for finals. I filmed some of that and let us hope I edit it before spring arrives. I also turned 22 in January.

Even though it was in December, I thought it would be interesting to share one of the tasks we had to do for our Media Design class. The idea was to choose a classical painting and create a picture or series inspired by the painting. My painting of choice was “Apple peele” by Gerard Borch.

Mother-daughter relationship is a topic very near to my heart, so I decided to look for similar scenes outdoors. I went around, walked a bit, then went into McDonalds and shot this. 

We also did some big-format film shooting with my class group at Graphische and it was loads of fun. I really appreciate moments like these 'cause usually after school everyone is into their own worlds.

Getting back to the Enjoyments part, I spent quite a bit of time on the road and watched many photography related movies. I actually would like to make a separate post just talking about movies for photographers, but I don’t feel qualified enough. Should I or should I not?

 So the first movie is about President Obama’s photographer called “White House through the lens” produced by National Geographic. Great photography with wonderful storytelling - what else can one wish for?


The second is "Guerrilla Fighters of Kurdistan" shot by my favorite photographer Joey Lawrence. I was always amazed by the courage of this photographer. A full-length behind-the-scenes with lots of personal stories, light technics and beautiful photography is such a rare gem to find and I really appreciate Joey putting so much effort into creating this film and sharing it with the world. 

Guerrilla Fighters of Kurdistan from Joey L on Vimeo.

Another recent discovery is Filler podcast, a new series on SoundCloud created by two English guys. They interview people whom mostly I have already been following online for years, and it’s a good fun to see them from a bit of a different perspective. Photographers Dan Rubin and Conor McDonnell are among the guests, and if you can get though the chattiness of the hosts you might enjoy it :) 

Lastly, I rediscovered Twitter, mainly for job purposes, but also to stay up-to-date with photographers and organizations I like. It still fascinates me how much easier it is to reach certain people with Twitter you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Occasionally I tweet, too. My username is rennes_i