creativity workshops

The Magic of Portrait Photography (Part Two)

Photography in Berlin, Portraits, Storytelling and Art Making / November 3, 2021

My portraits of women are a cornerstone of what I do. In that work, I am often hired to do a single portrait, which then expands into a pair or group portrait – this is down to the natural, evolving need to subsequently show that same person in connection with their products or within their team.

While in a single portrait session there is an intimate space between the person I am photographing and my camera, especially in terms of what she wants to represent professionally, as soon as there are two or more subjects, their shared relationship comes into play.

portraits of women, empowering photography, Berlin

Channeling my empowering photography ethos, my aim was to show Caroline Schneider, founder of Sternberg Press, as the true art and discourse-related thinker, as well as leader that she is.

When I took this solo portrait for Sternberg – a publishing house for artistic and cultural criticism, creative non-fiction, and literary and experimental fiction founded by Caroline in New York in 1999 – it gave way to a team shoot where I captured an even fuller picture of their work environment and the dynamics exist between them. It is in their creative home on Karl-Marx-Allee, amidst their books, that I took this series.

group portrait, empowering photography, Berlin

I wanted to illustrate how Caroline has a very strong relationship to each and every single title published by the press, plus with the vital, dynamic team she has carefully built over the years in this truly unique place. Her beauty shines.

Indeed, once you start representing a person in a professional context, there is always that wider spectrum or bigger picture which wants to be shown to the world. And, ideally, all of these photographs should be taken by the same person, so that they can create a cohesive vision – one which aesthetically becomes one body. That’s where I come in!

art curator, women portrait, women monochromeIn this vein, I’ve also photographed Eva Meyer-Hermann: a curator and art historian who decided to become a curator for artists, as her way of responding to the political developments in the art world which have led to its general lack of real exchange and mediation.

And it was precisely at this special moment of building her new identity – and website – that I came into the picture, with my personal branding photography, with the aim of communicating both Eva herself and her practice to a wider audience.

personal branding photography, portraits of women, empowering photography, art curator

We spent a couple of hours together in her office – first alone, then with her associate curator, Johannes Schmidt. Every photograph I took for Eva had a different role to play. In the headshot, the aim was to show her as open and smiling, offering an invitation for dialogue.

The other two images show moments of contemplation and creative thinking, as well as her explaining a work of art that is dear to her.

Similarly, I have enjoyed the privilege of capturing Laura Galatti’s portrait. Laura is a Swiss pianist, composer, and politician. After having encountered her and her partner, Christina Thürmer-Rohr, performing Die Kontroverse in the Viennese Liszt-Saal, I had the honour of joining them during rehearsal in their performance space, Akazie 3, here in Berlin Schöneberg.

empowering photography, portraits of women, female pianist, female artistsMy role in facilitating empowering photography here was centred on conveying Laura’s artistry and skill. This type of work presents me with the wonderful challenge of somehow finding a meaningful way to convert aural beauty into a visual medium.

So in my single portraits of Laura, the viewer is able to experience Laura listening to the sound she is producing with a metal sheet. And in her partnered shots, I have sought to communicate her close relationships and dialogues with her instrument, her partner, and the very process of writing music.personal branding photography, portraits of women, empowering photography

Ultimately, it’s all an organic process. During the portrait session, the women I’m photographing talk with me and show me what they are selling or creating or offering. Then, I capture these aspects too.

In fact, in so much of my art photography work to date, I have searched for ways to capture invisible processes within a photographic image, something of an essence that would otherwise be hidden: from plants and fruits, to animals, and nonverbal communication between people.

In this way, I am very versatile in what and how I can photograph, so website photography – as this broad, rich spectrum – just comes naturally to me. 

 

 

The Magic of Portrait Photography (Part One)

Photography in Berlin / October 20, 2021

food waste reduction, quinces 2021I adore quinces. I love their velvet skins, the hard bodies, their rich perfume, their androgyne character, their rich yellow colour that turns red in the cooking process. I love how they challenge me as a cook and I love their role in ancient cooking practices – both here, in Europe, and in the SWANA* region – and find it interesting to think about what traditions they have been part of throughout history. In fact, I am currently experimenting with some Jewish SWANA recipes, both savoury and sweet: I have a wonderfully large quince harvest waiting for me on my balcony at home and, true to type, will be documenting my processes in working with them this season.

Outwith my own kitchen, I am devoting time and energy to a brand new space that, like my own kitchen, will be home to exciting experiments and adventures in all things food – including food waste reduction – and the senses.

creativity workshops, art workshops, Lobe Berlin 2021Lobe is a house project in Wedding: a newly built, brutalist concrete building defined by its terraces, its garden – where, among other things, quinces grow – and its many cohabiting animals. Soon, its ground floor units will become one space, a fresh, joint space for events, workshops, food experiments, and a lab for creating a more sustainable future.

Ana Zatezalo and Olivia Reynolds are the founders of this new space and project. With quinces fresh in from the harvest of the Lobe garden and the quince being chosen as the symbol of their new venture (name to be revealed!), I knew that I just had to channel my empowering photography approach to capture them with these brilliant fruits as a symbolic starting point of their collaboration journey.

So, what happens when you bring artistic, innovative women and versatile, delicious fruits together?

personal branding photography, portraits of women, empowering photographyNot least a dream commission for me as a portrait photographer in the world of personal branding photography… weaving together my roles as a member of the founding team, cook, and photographer – one who specialises in portraits of women and fruits! – and capturing the very essence of Lobe’s future here in Berlin.

Over the next couple of months, I will be the one to create all of Ana and Olivia’s website photography: ultimately creating online portraits that communicate the playful potential in business collaboration. This is part of my work that I really love – distilling and celebrating the character and mission of fascinating people who are creating important work. So, watch this space…

*SWANA is an acronym referring to the wide geographical area which encompasses South West Asia and North Africa.

 

Honoring the Leftovers

Food & conservation / July 9, 2021

Welcome to July!

With all the fresh produce and food this time of year offers, I’d like to share the story behind one of my creativity workshops, Color Food Fun.

As an artist and a mother, I take a lot of inspiration from my kids’ playfulness, curiosity and their willingness to try out new things. When my son was learning about the different aspects of food production in school, I offered to give a workshop on food waste reduction. As some of you may know, I love an opportunity to improvise! Why not see how children could learn about the political aspects of food using leftovers?

 I asked parents to send their child to school with a cutting board and one ‘leftover’ food item from the fridge. In a sense, it was going to be an experiment about how we can change our relationship to food. And what better group than kids with little or no experience with cooking!

As an interdisciplinary artist, process and connections are a major theme in my work. I wanted the children to spend time with whatever they brought and form a connection through making drawings of their carrot, tomato or cabbage.

It became so personal for each child, like a poetic act of honoring the food.

After cutting out their drawings, they made a big collage together – grouping colors, types of food and possible relationships. The food became little islands of ‘players’. I was so thrilled to see their excitement and joy as they formed cooking groups based on the organization of the collage. I stood back and let them be the creators unless they needed help.

The energetic community of these young chefs was so beautiful to watch!

At the end, we shared in this delicious and unexpected buffet. The kids wanted to taste everything which is unusual because children can be quite picky. Food became an exciting adventure in how to look at it, how to serve it and how to taste it.

Afterwards, parents called to tell me how much fun their child had and how it had triggered a lot of reflection about food. The political aspect had been felt through the different processes, subtly woven into the experience.

I took what I had learned from the workshop and brought it back to my office. Once a month, I asked my colleagues to bring in one food item or leftovers from home. I then created a big lunchtime communal meal. As we ate, people would try and guess which part of the meal incorporated their special ingredient. Instead of the usual lunch of grabbing take out and eating at their desks, we became an engaged group sharing food together.

I’d love to invite you to do this with your children and friends. Plan a dinner party where everyone brings something and co-create a meal together. Set the table and welcome in a spontaneous creative atmosphere. It may feel a bit strange to put the recipes and planning aside, but as the kids taught me, isn’t that part of the fun?

Happy experimenting!

Ines

Scent Soup: the power of unusual connections

Sensory Art / June 11, 2021

Spring is in full bloom! 

With the scent of lilacs, peonies and lavender in the air, I hope you’re taking some time to enjoy these warm longer days. I want this to be a space of sharing, so I thought this is the perfect time of year to celebrate how the connections between the senses became integral to my art. We’ll travel back to when I was an art student, visiting a seaside garden in France, deep in May, the plants in full blossom, the bees heavy with pollen. I wanted to photograph and film the plant’s interactions with one another. For me, connections and relationships are essential in making art and the flowers were the perfect subjects for portraiture and composition. 

Upon returning to Paris, by some strange synchronicity, I found a Vietnamese restaurant called Fleurs de mai. Reminded of the seaside garden, I walked in and was immediately immersed in this deep scent saturating the space. It took many return visits to try and identify the layers of the scent such as different algae, mushrooms and herbs. Finally, I created a recipe for a ‘scent soup’ that invoked the restaurant. I wondered what would occur through combining the flower visuals with the restaurant’s strong unrelated scent. In a room at the Art Academy, I cooked the ‘scent soup’ for hours until its vapors permeated the room. 

As people entered, I projected the images from the lush seaside garden. Sound became another layer as I stirred and moved objects around in a spontaneous performance piece. 

Later, people that had attended told me that when they saw some of the particular flowers from the film in real life, they smelled the scent of the soup! 

I realized I had created a totally new relationship that provoked images and memories.

The richer a sensory experience –  when your eyes, ears, nose and taste are all stimulated- the more the encounter inscribes itself upon you. 

I started to look at how scent relates to color. I liked the idea of using color as a common connection between people because everyone relates to color and feels safe when talking about color. As one of my art workshops at a food art week, Color Correspondence became a space to practice paying attention to what happens when we make unusual connections between the senses. What an incredible experience! Combining color with scent invoked emotions, stories, memories and images within the group. Together we discovered this creative personal space that triggered so much play and exploration. 

Usually when people think of unusual connections between the senses, the word synesthesia comes up. We think of it as a mysterious condition reserved for geniuses or famous musicians that ‘hear’ colors. We assume we don’t have access to these deeply rich and complex sensory experiences. As an artist, I was reluctant to use the word in relation to my work for its overly hyped reputation. But then I read The Superhuman Mind by Berit Brogaard and Kristian Marlow, a book that describes this phenomenon in scientific terms. Of course, it’s still a poetic concept but also about using the senses to stimulate the different areas of your brain in order to make lasting connections. 

Through the senses, we all have access to changing how we perceive and memorize the world. 

I had found the science behind what I’d already experienced with my art and creativity workshops. This sensory work can even be a part of memorizing techniques or learning new skills. By including as many senses as possible, memory capacity is enhanced and you can train the brain through practice and use. Your perception of the world changes. 

Each experience is its own story made up of what we see, taste, smell, hear and touch. As an interdisciplinary artist, my passion is in separating out each sensory layer and then recombining them to create new ways of experiencing ourselves and the world around us. I invite you to take some time during these sunny days as the world begins to reopen to get curious about your sensory experiences – play, connect and discover.