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Valette Studio - Presentation - Paris Fashion Week SS 23/24

Participation in Paris Fashion Week is always a great distinction and I’m happy that I could again shoot the presentation of Valette Studio, the fine art masculine brand created by Pierre François Valette.

The presentation took place in Palais Tokyo and was organized within Paris Sphere, a special Fashion Week showroom supporting young, creative talents.

I need to admit that what interest me the most during fashion shows, is everything what happens between the official scenes. An official outcome is spectacular, of course; but all emotions in between, tension, relief, expectations, impatience, stress, breathe, models walking between average humans, this is something magical. And again I realized that B&W shows it better than photos in color.

That’s what I was able to catch:

Baltic Sea in November

… and andante from the piano concerto no 21 by Mozart.

I’m totally a beach person, but only under the one circumstance: the place has to be empty. When I was studying and having my internship in St Petersburg 2012/13, I loved to walk along the ‘sea side’, I mean, the Gulf of Finland. It was one of these (rare, I think…) times in my life when I was sharing living space with others, including sharing bedroom with a crazy catholic girl who has never smiled. In the second room we had a cute, Danish party girl (my human there) and a Chinese one without name, but with many Chinese friends. The didn’t speak any language despite of Chinese and ate a lot of chicken and rice, exactly in such order. For an introvert it might be a nightmare.

It was fall/winter time and the beach was absolutely empty. Maybe I should have been afraid of sth, I don’t know. But it was the place where I could breathe. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist anymore and these months were the last months before a kind of new-urban space has been built in this area. (Vasilyevsky Ostrov).

Another totally empty beach was the one in the Severodvinsk, White Sea, the north of the European part of Russia, which is probably one of the weirdest places I’ve ever visited.

Cuban beach on the Gulf of Mexico (2016), empty and silent, far away from typical tourist spots, is literally a heaven and one of the proofs for Gd’s existence.

I have no idea how many times I’ve walked along the beach(es) in Tel Aviv. Usually I do that with a camera or with a bottle of wine (surprisingly, the first one happens more often). I love this place, as long as tel avivian weirdos leave me alone. No, not these handsome and hot guys who enjoys their afternoon and evenings finally being free after work in one of their three start-ups, only the weirdest people from all the place. I worry they feel sth in common with me. Anyway, in this place sometimes you really need to struggle (or rather run away…) to be left alone.

Coney Island in September, during office/school hours, when the weather is insecure.

And the heroine of today’s story, just the Polish beach located on the Hel Peninsula. I went there in November with my sister and her family. I traveled to the Baltic Sea many times as a kid, but mostly it was during summertime. Going there in November was a wonderful idea. I was supposed to have the test shooting there, but it has been cancelled. Thanks to that I could have this amazing walk.

It was cold, raining, empty and beautiful. I was listening to the waves or to Mozart: andante from the piano concerto no 21. Absolutely beautiful piece of music (btw, it was the final piece from the soundtrack in ‘The Amadeus’ movie, when Salieri finished his story…)

Andante Piano Concerto no21 by Karajan

and photos I took this day.

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The Morbid Beauty of the Carmo Convent (Lisbon)

If you want to make G-d laugh, tell him your plans. I have had plans, a lot.

After spending almost all February in bed (I got super sick in NY), I’ve seen some Paris Fashion Week (OFS) 2020 collections and then in March, covid_19 took over the world. I was supposed to start few interesting projects in the mid of March, both personal and commercial, but everything has been postponed for the unknown point in the future. I hope I will be able to work again soon, after the end of lockdown (possibly 11th of May), however, I’m aware that the creative and visual sector won’t be the same as before. But I keep hope for the great things to come!

This forced slowdown became the great opportunity to look again and develop images from the personal archive. Today I’m publishing photos from the place, which perfectly mix the two of my favourites aesthetic ideas: the secretiveness of abandoned places and the spiritual beauty of the Gothic architecture.

The catholic Convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been built in XIV century and ruined during the sequence of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which was one of the deadliest in the history (killing in Lisbon alone between 10 000 and 100 000 of people…). Of course there are no words to describe such a huge tragedy, but… we need to honestly admit that few natural catastrophes created absolutely unique pieces of art (vide: Pompeii, for example)

I saw this place and I immediately knew, that I would like to come back there again as soon as possible, but not as a tourist anymore. I simply would love to have a professional shooting there and have some ideas or rather a whole scenario in my head… and I hope to share the photos of the realized scenario in few months or years ;-) who knows? But today, just a few postcards:

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Postcards from NY - vol. 1

We all are street photographers, landscape photographers, travel photographers, in a certain way. Some of us just decide to specialize in a particular field or have tendency to catch a particular kind of images. I can’t a v o i d street photography; however, it’s a pity that my eyes can’t take a photos, my images would be much better.

Personally, I take photos all the time; I take photos of my cat (and my cat and my cat once again), food, drinks, wine, flowers, friends, light, architecture; when I’m sitting with friends in cafe or jogging. (To make it clear, I jog definitely too rarely…). It’s my life, my addiction, inner need, which became my profession.

I was simply too bad in other professions.

So today I would like to share some visual impressions from the city which doesn’t sleep. Ok, it’s just Manhattan that doesn’t sleep. Or some parts of Astoria. Or …

Ok. Enjoy.