Blues portrait

I had a plan today to do a new city portrait with an extraordinary person. Please, meet Dalibor Popović – Mikša. Extremely talented person. He is a painter by profession, but also a great guitar and saxophone player. His installations can be seen across Europe and also, he plays guitar and sax in a local band called Tatoo.
I had a great idea for his portrait (at least, I believe it was a great idea),but many things went wrong so I decided to do just a formal portrait for now and to try with a CityPortrait type some other time. We both tried to organized it well but without success. But, I’ll tell you something more about it after I materialize it.
Considering this portrait, I lit it with a bare Vivitar285HV set on a 1/4 power, f8 and shutter time of 1 sec. Why such a long exposure? It was total darkness and I wanted some details in my background. I shot it without a tripod.
BW version

City portrait #15 – Aleksa Milić

Aleksa Milić – orthodox ikonographer. He is making ikons on a traditional way and with traditional materials (pigments, eggs, gold…). Originally, painter by profession. Works in a studio in monastery Klisina, 15 km from Prijedor.

I have to thank to my friend Ogi and my lovely wife Dragana who helped me with this portrait. Here are some pictures from rehearsals two days ago:

And here are two pictures I used for my final image:

City portrait #14 – Darko Vujasinović

Darko Vujasinović – airplane and helicopter model maker. Passionate hobbyist. One of two owners of a helicopter powered by a fuel engine. More info to come. Here are pictures for now.

City portrait #12 – Nešo Nožinić

Finally, a new portrait. I’m back!!!
Nešo Nožinić – a pilot. Idea to take a portrait of him came to me long ago because as long as I’m aware of myself, I know for him and for his passion for hight. We were discussing yesterday of how the picture would look like and how am I going to do it and as I mentioned one old airplane on a empty field in small village near Prijedor called Međuvođe, I saw a sparkle in his eye. After a small break, he told me that the airplane, that I want to include in the picture, is the same airplane from which he had performed his first free jump while he was at the parachute training.

Through Nešo, I wanted to indicate on a long tradition of flying in Prijedor. That old devastated airplane of Kurir type is a monument to a partizan pilots from WW II that took 2 German airplanes and escaped to a non occupied territory of Prijedor and formed first partizan squadron. Those two pilots were Franjo Kluz and Rudi Čajevec.

City portrait #11 – Lazar Marčetić

Lazar Marčetić – director and manager of Saničani fish pond near Prijedor. I know Lazar for some time, and I tried to transfer my own vision of him in this portrait. I always saw him as an urban intellectual who live a quality and successful life. Active sportsman, involved in a cultural life of a city, successful career.
The idea was to show him as a worker (not a stereotypic manager kind a guy). So, fish net is symbolizing his occupation while basketball equipment (he was active basketball player for a long time and now he is helping in development of Prijedor sport life) symbolize his active way of life.

City portrait #10 – Mladen Palada

Mladen Palada – a parachutist. Owner of many awards and medals and one of the icons of Prijedor sport, member of Prijedor Airclub. He is still active but doesn’t compete anymore. Many interesting stories he has to tell but there is one that can not leave you calm. Back in 1971 he had to perform his first jump after a theoretical part of his parachutist training. Airplane climb to altitude of 800 meters from where every training jump begins. They were performing a hook jump (where parachute is hooked to the airplane and opens instantly after jump). He jumped, and everything he felt was high speed but no absorbing shock when parachute opens. He saw that parachute was not opened right so he detached his main parachute and he opened his reserve. He had just 3 sec. to do that. And it was his FIRST jump. That was the time when death at first jump was common thing.

I was trying for few days to do this portrait but everything came up wrong. From weather to idea and scenario. First, weather was so bad that one could not go outside from a house. Then, I was building some ideas for this portrait and finally I overcomplicated it too much that realization became impossible and too expensive. So I decided to go with Mladen at Prijedor airfield and we will do some simple and clean portraits. When we get there, strong wind starts and instantly, I’ve got an idea to try to open a parachute against the wind. We were trying for several times, but it was impossible to get Mladen at the place I wanted him to be because, parachute was carrying him around airfield. So, I tried to run with him while I was holding my light stand in one hand and camera in other (and that is how picture on the top arise). Suddenly, wind stopped and parachute collapse over me.

And here are few tryouts of opening a parachute

City portrait #9 – Tihomir Ilijašević

Tihomir Ilijašević – artist, painter, director of city gallery, Gallery 96 in Prijedor.
He is also a caricaturist and I asked him to draw himself with light as a contrast to real him. This kind of shooting is based on many tries and many mistakes. This particular picture is taken in 42 seconds and f stop was 8.
My advice to all of you who will try light drawing on your pictures is to have some kind of canvas behind camera (a wall, or blank sheet, or a truck 🙂 ) because it will be much easier to draw when you can see some of light trail.
Here are some tryouts:

City portrait #8 – Gordana Vila

Gordana Vila – a television reporter. Working for the RTRS, ITC Prijedor, covering Prijedor region (6 municipalities).
I shoot her in a cowboy (cowgirl) style, because I do believe that working in media in Bosnia is like on Wild West, specially for a woman. A lot of discrimination and hard struggle to achieve respect and honorable position. Like a cowboy, always ready to “fight”.

City portrait #7 – Slavko Elijaš

Slavko Elijaš – professor in secondary Electro technical school in Prijedor and head of school’s research section. Together with his students, won numerous awards in Republic of Srpska and abroad. Many of their patents are potential mass production products. Among them are new anti-burglary locking system, water pressure systems, traffic lights smart control and many others.
I noticed great atmosphere while they were working at their class, relaxed but serious.
Here are some links where you can find something more about their work:
http://www.savez-inovatora-zagreba.hr/download/im08/gosti_i_studenti.pdf
http://www.capital.ba/dragan-stupar-inovacijama-zakotrljao-zlatni-tocak-tehnike/
www.studentskioglasi.ba
www.glassrpske.com

On picture, I asked Slavko to hold an apple as he will throw it on a students head. I used it as a symbol of inspiration (Isaac Newton case)that he is giving to his students while provoking their way of thinking.
Many thanks to fourth grade of secondary Electro technical school Prijedor who helped me with this portrait, specially to Dragan and Dražen who provide me with informations about their achievements.

City portrait #6 – Nedeljko Lajšić

Nedeljko is a cameraman on RTRS (Radio Televizija Republike Srpske) – a public information service. Mostly, he is recognizable by his camera. Also, Nedeljko is shooting few documentary films on his own and about war in Bosnia but with time distance and with stories from each side who participate in a clash.
I tried to accent his eye with light as a main tool in his job.

A musician

Aleksandar Rađenović, young classical guitarist who recently graduated at Academy of Arts in Banja Luka (RS, BiH). He works as a professor of classical guitar in music schools in Banja Luka and Prijedor and he’s active concert player. I did a short photo session today with him in Prijedor city theatre. We had just a few minutes on a main stage so we moved to the lobby which is very bad place to shoot (all the reflective surfaces that one could think of).

City portraits #5 – Jadranka Rečević

Jadranka Rečević – local radio station (Radio Prijedor) announcer. I took this photo on Prijedors green market and put Jadranka as she was listening for some local gossip. Symbolically – as she has to be informed about city life.

It was very interesting this morning, while I was waiting for Jadranka to come, wind was so cold and it was rainy and finally when she came I thought, great I’ll warm myself through moving around with my lights and with my camera… but… my bad luck was that everybody knows her and everybody tried to ask her something and in some moment, I lost her there.

It was pretty hard taking pictures there because day was very cloudy with cold rain and market place is very dark place on such day, not to many people outside so I had to find some spot with someone in it. I had to increase my ISO to 500, lower my exposure to 1/30 and aperture was nice at f8. I used one small strobe (Vivitar 285hv) with reflective umbrella.