Where are you Joanna?

I don't know where Joanna's gone. I really don't, I've lost her somewhere. She hasn't been on g-mail chat for ages now and we haven't spoken for weeks. I'm sure she had told me she was going for a holiday or somewhere and in my mental clumsiness I forgot :-/ However, this gives me an opportunity to post some of my favourite pictures from our last session. They are very different to the sunny-Italian ones and they are all black and white, just how I like them. To be honest, Joanna asked me to prepare some of them in colour, but I'm very reluctant. B&W just suits the mood better and I don't think that adding colour will do anything good. It's just irrelevant. Probably I won't be able to assertively resist though and a few colour ones will appear in the future (posted by Joanna). Probably.

I was trying to emulate some of the old films (Tri-X, T-Max), hence the grain and all "imperfections" are left. I also played with filters to enhance and blunt various colour ranges.

It is really time to think of another session. Isn't it Joanna? As soon as I find you.

 

 

 

And below are two of Marten Collins' images from the same shoot:

The hat and the hound

A week ago we have had another joint shoot with Marten Collins; this time we were joint by His Highness the King of All Whippets - Zebedi. Zebedi (who usually resides with his humble subject Marten) makes one of the most elegant photographic props available out there. Beautiful, patient and very well-behaved - a mini greyhound is a must this season.
As is orange.

Podczas ostatniej sesji dołączył do nas Król Wszystkich Whippetów - Zebedi. Zeb (który na codzień mieszka ze swoim skromnym podwładnym Martenem Collinsem) jest zdecydowanie najelegantszym  dodatkiem kreacji Joanny. Piękny, cierpliwy, dobrze wychowany - w tym sezonie obowiązuje chart. 
I kolor pomarańczowy.

 

Joanna is wearing:
- Hat - Reserved
- Dress, scarf - charity shop
- Bag - charity shop, originally Per Una
- Heels - Ryłko
- Earrings - own production

In the shade of a giant pancake

Joanna:
I have just returned from travelling, and will add a few words on Canada before whipping out the fashion photos. My conference in Toronto was awesome, but apart from that...
- Canadians are incredibly friendly and polite. It's a bit of a shock to the system after living among the (mostly) frigid Brits. Canucks are talkative, helpful, and have a nice American air to them (while at the same time being more civilised than those wild Americans).
- Canadians love tattoos! I was in Toronto Zoo on a hot day and saw more tattoos than I wanted to. In fact, it was easier to find a person with a tattoo than without.
- Canadians make good dads - plenty of them take their kids to the zoo. And apparently there are baby changing facilities in men's toilets (haven't checked that though).
- Canadians love their huge portions of food. A portion of maple syrup pancakes (with bacon - why???) lasted me for two meals.
- Canadians are very proud of their flag and display it everywhere. Again, a nice change after ostentatiously unpatriotic Britain.
I also saw the ROM, AGO, Bata shoe museum, monster trucks, a musk rat, a car with cojones (literally!), and a guy carrying a hockey stick and wearing a moose t-shirt. Sweet!

And Brussels - with its great beer and wonderful couchsurfers - was just cool.

Below are photos of a hat I bought last year at the Gloucester Green market (8GBP - bargain!), seen through the lenses of Adrian and Marten Collins.


Dzisiejsze zdjęcia znów wzięte z archiwum, bo Joanna bujała się po Kanadzie i Belgii. Kapelusz z czwartkowego rynku na Gloucester Green w obiektywach Adriana i Martena Collinsa.

Adrian's work:

And Marten's work:

Joanna is wearing:
- A hat from a vintage market
- An ancient corset
- Gloves from a bridal shop
- Mum's pearls.

That Hat

A while ago Joanna sent her Mum to a millinery crash-course organised by Małgosia Wybrańska. Mum returned overjoyed, and on her next visit to Oxford presented Joanna with a fascinator-hat, which she produced at the workshop. Take a look, isn't it beautiful?

Jakiś czas temu Joanna wypchnęła Swoją Mamę na warsztaty kapelusznictwa organizowane przez Małgosię Wybrańską (relację można zobaczyć u Karoliny-G). Mam wróciła zachwycona, a przy najbliższej wizycie w Oksfordzie wręczyła Joannie własnoręcznie zrobiony kapelusik. Sami popatrzcie, czyż nie piękny?


The fascinator viewed by Adrian:

And by Kasia - who joined us for the studio shoot:

Apart from the hat, Joanna is wearing
- A corset (from the bottom of the wardrobe)
- The Same Gloves As Always
- A necklace from Dueci Bijoux

White Swan - Black Swan (the studio shoot)

Adrian: Most of all I wanted to thank you very much for the recent comments and sincerely apologise for the delay. I was on a long holiday during the Easter break and had a lot of work catch up with afterwards. Not much time for the hobby unfortunately. Not to mention, I've had a little photo crisis recently. For some reasons I don't feel the urge to take photographs... I think I need a little break after the recent months when I had so many assignments. Besides, I've been into music a lot recently... It has always been my greatest love and I don't want to neglect it anymore.

Nevertheless, here's the second set of the studio pictures. Once again thank you for waiting, I do appreciate that.

Joanna: On my part I want to add that my no. 1 Black Swan accessory is a woolen boa from Peri (she made it herself! talented woman), and the White Swan showcases a wonderful vintage coat bought at the Affordable Vintage Fashion Fair in Oxford, from Samantha.

And as an aside - check out "Puttypaw", a book recently published by my friend Tom. It's available online for free until the 25th of May, so hurry!

Here goes...

Black swan:

White swan:

The White Swan (teaser)

 

Dear Followers,

Thank you very much for your positive comments on the previous, oversaturated session (a la Andy Warhol). I found them very comforting because I struggled with the pictures a little. I tried to play with the composition, colours and patterns a bit, but it’s definitely not my cup of tea, oh well.

This one is though. We had a fantastic session two weekends ago. Marten Collins from Henley-on-Thames (www.martencollins.co.uk) very kindly let me play in his photo studio. We visited him with Kasia and thoroughly enjoyed the time, what a genuinely nice person he is. This was also the first time I had a chance to try out VERY large soft boxes and had enough space to move the kit around. I’ll publish the results soon (together with Kasia’s shots, again, many of her pictures are better, than mine…). I’ve been very busy with other assignments recently, but the below shot shows what you can expect.

Colours overload - retreat!

We finally have the colourful pics (apologies for the delay!). Joanna’s idea was to pay tribute to Andy Warhol, who had been fascinated by pop culture, consumerism, supermarkets, colours and repeated patterns. It seems that we bit off a bit more than we could chew, however...

Adrian is not much of a Warhol fan, and does not like in-your-face colours and patterns – next time we will go back to his preferred photography style.

Nareszcie mamy kolorowe zdjęcia (przepraszamy za zwłokę!). Zamysłem Joanny było zrobienie fotek odwołujących się do Andyego Warhola – zafascynowanego popkulturą, konsumpcjonizmem, supermarketami, kolorami i powtarzalnością. Zadanie trochę nas przerosło...

Adrian niestety nie jest fanem Warhola, ani tym bardziej oczopląsu i przesyconych kolorów – więc w następnej sesji wrócimy do fotografii w jego stylu.

Colours come from:
- A charity shop skirt (originally Oasis)
- A blouse made from a Whistles dress, also bought in a charity shop
- A charity shop handbag
- A flower, which - in hindsight - might have been redundant here
- Ecco shoes
- A variety of Sainsbury's products.