Didn’t you always wanted to design and make your own piece of clothing? My Slovenian friends Biljana Janković and Kristina Berčič have something to share with you, enjoy the story.

Last weekend City Art Gallery Ljubljana and Socialdress had an amazing workshop, but how the story begins. The link between gallery and Socialdress started because way back in the time these wide trousers were being warn in Paris for the first time, not too much behind them were the first ladies from Ljubljana who started wearing that kinda revolutionary trousers. In history at the exact gallery where this workshop took place, used to be a shop where they were selling these trousers.

Amazing one day long workshop that brings out your creativity to the fullest and at the end you end up laughing for no special reason. I chose to make one out of jeans. Love them, took me awhile but they’re just the most comfortable trousers ever. My friend made one out of jersey, also very comfortable and stylish. I love days like this. Full of creativity and hanging out with great people!

The author of Socialdress Marija Mojce Pungerčar uses the term “social dress” for clothing that has an integrative effect in terms of community. The Socialdress workshops spread knowledge about clothes making, at the same time reinforcing awareness about the consequences of globalization to the Slovenian textile industry, and about the gradual disappearance of craft skills. At Socialdress workshops they create functional items of clothing with a lot of soul that are easy to make as well. An important part of the workshops is an exchange of stories and experiences. In this way they create and propagate the Socialdress brand label. You cannot buy a Socialdress dress in a shop, you can only make it yourself.

If you are in Ljubljana, come and visit their work included into ”word for word without words” exhibition at City Art Gallery Ljubljana. It will be open till the end of October. Thank you girls!

While I was at Photodays, I’ve met amazing gal Natalija Bajric, the head of visualeyes agency which is now representing 17 reknowned and international photographers. Thank you Photodays for getting me closer to people like Natalija. Today she has something for you from the very first issue of their magazine.

Hanspeter Schneider has worked on a visualeyes production in Paris for “Magazin Z”, which is a fashion suppliment of the NZZ, Switzerland’s most read newspaper. The production took place in a beautiful appartment in Paris and with 10 models on set. The shooting was accompanied by a TV station and documented in the daily reportage of GLANZ & GLORIA. Nice work!

Hmm… think we have some more news from Natalija. But not today, stay tuned!

Two days off and I’m back with the very interesting story about Jan Schjetne, a fashion photographer working in London and Oslo. Sit back and enjoy, he’s such a worthy guy.

Jan never really thought much about photography before he got into photo blogging. He was a web developer back in the days, and he built a photo diary for Mr. Naughty James and his 1095 Project. Jan also built his own photo diary as well, borrowed a digital camera from the advertising agency he worked in, and started photographing his life and experiences. He got really into it, and started imagining a professional life with camera in hand.

I guess that’s where my kind of random snapshot style comes from.

Jan taught himself to photograph by observing the world around him, the people at the parties he went to, all his friends, his girlfriends, pretty much everything he saw. Today Jan still care more for his diary style photographs than his professional, properly lit photographs.

Jan studied in London, at a fashion photography course at University of the Arts. Those were truly the most exciting and challenging years of his interesting life. It was fantastic, but he knows that he would never want to live that life again. Strange or not, it’s history.

As a fashion photographer and a student in London you’re constantly surrounded by chaos, drugs, parties, booze, women… And I got sucked right into that lifestyle.

He’s back in safe and comfortable Norway now, and he often thinks back at his time in London as a time when he could truly challenge himself through his work.

The photographers I look up to aren’t the photographers who light beautifully or get the best models and stylists, but the photographers who put themselves in situations with
interesting subject matter.

A girl rolling around naked in front of the sofa at a party, a couple still dancing around at 7 in the morning, oblivious to the fact that the party ended hours ago, friends having a toke in the back seat of a taxi, etc. That is the reality that truly makes great snapshots.

Jan does almost everything. Through what feels like a long life he has gathered skills that make him able to be a photographer, graphic designer, web developer, Flash developer and general know-it-all.

Ever since Jan was a kid he has thought about his goals for life and it’s never deviated from “If it feels good, do it!”. A few years ago Jan met a girl, Hilde that soon became his girlfriend (though she’s back to being just a friend now). They pumped each other up, they discussed photography 20 hours of the day, and they pushed each other to becoming better photographers.

A 1000 ideas a day, a few of them realised.

Together, Jan and Hilde wanted to make stuff, break stuff. They hooked up with a couple of guys and founded a website called Phiary, a photo diary website where people could share their daily snapshots. They are still working on it, slowly making it become the photo diary website they all want to use themselves.

About the featured photo set, Tom and Emma

Tom and Emma are two of Jan’s very best friends. They let him live in their house when he had nowhere else, and they’ve been fantastic in every way since he first met them. This whole series was conceived when Jan needed to test situation photography for his graduation project at university. It started as a test, but the whole shoot became such a great experience and the photos came out above all expectation. They were all drunk and blazed by the end of the night, stumbling around like the idiots they are. Jan said, the fight scene could have been better but by that point they couldn’t see straight so whatever went down was how it would end up on his camera.

That’s it, thank you Jan for sharing your awesome story. Hope you will have something wow-like-this for us soon. Dear readers do not forget about the DwA’s first giveaway: Wallpaper alert! Take part and win a cool gift because it’s so simple. Read more here!

My dear guys Sanja and Pedja have decided to make a pair of gadget-friendly geek jeans called WTFJeans. They have simply wanted to make 2 pairs of jeans, one pair for each one. They just wanted to have a jeans which they really like. A pair that is comfortable, of a nice denim color and with some nicely fitted pockets which are big enough to put their iPhones, but at the same time not too big as at those baggy hip-hoppers jeans. And after less than a 3 months we got their product available for purchase via online shop.

To be honest, I’ve never spent more than 15€ (that’s about 20 bucks) for a piece of clothes, but I’ll think again about WTFJeans (early bird price 79€) because those pants worth more for sure. Micro-fiber interior protects your iPhone or iPod touch, as well as cleaning it when you take it out. There is a hidden Memory stick pocket, so put in your USB stick or something. Extra protection for boys? O’yes, extra padding on both sides keeps your family jewels cozy.

The pockets of WTFJeans are positioned in such a way to make your ass stand out in a crowd, behing the Your ass? Sexyass™. Furthermore, each and every part of the WTFjeans was specially sewed with the color of the Twitter timeline, blue. So, go and follow them on Twitter. I’m sure Sanja and Pedja will surprise us soon, with another WOW thing, maybe the stats or a new product. Good luck guys and do not give those promo codes to the mainstream.

It seems DwA is becoming a home of interesting worth-reading stories. Today I’m glad to present you Lindsay Adler, a professional fashion and portrait photographer from New York-London route. I’ve done an awesome interview with her, enjoy.

I’ve read you began photographing at age 13, that’s amazing. How you started? With camera obscura?

I first started photography at age 13 as a way to share time with my mother and grandmother. Both were hobbyist photographers and we lived on a large farm in upstate NY that provided ample photographic opportunities. We would take walks together and photograph whatever we saw—fall foliage, mushrooms, farm animals, hay fields, and more.

Photography took on an important significance in those early days. First, it was an important memory sharing time with my grandma who later died of cancer. Second, it instilled in me the ability to appreciate the beauty around me. It is far too easy to become blind to all the beautiful things around you—you see them everyday and they just become ‘normal’. But photography provided me a way to explore and appreciate my environment.

While I began just snapping away with a point-and-shoot, my first real camera was a Canon Rebel 2000 SLR film camera. I took it with me everywhere, and when I was 13 I went on a trip with my parents to the American West—The Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. While on vacation I took some stunning images that later that year were published in a calendar. My career began there.

While in high school I started a portrait business which helped me learn more about photography and to also ‘fund my habit’ of photography (film and equipment is expensive!).

Throughout my experiences I have been a nature photographer, portrait photographer, photojournalism, commercial photographer… and finally I have become a fashion photographer.

Succesful photographer is not so easy to be, is the education important? Which school, college you chose?

I attended Syracuse University with the Newhouse School of Public Communications. I had a degree in Photography, Photojournalism and Entrepreneurship.

I have always had a passion for education and learning. Since I was young I always strived to excel in school, and graduated as Valedictorian of my high school (award given to the student with the high grade point average throughout all of high school).

That being said, education is not really that important to success as a photographer. Much of what I learned I taught myself. You must always be pushing yourself to take make more images, push your creative boundaries, and to keep up on new/exciting photographic techniques.

You must teach yourself if you want to stand out… otherwise your skill set and knowledge is the same as your peers.

My education was important for two reasons. (1) It helped me mature mentally as an individual. I learned more about the world around me and how to be better prepared to face the world. When I entered college I was still a bit of a child, but college gave me a safe and free environment to figure out who I was and what I believed in. (2) College helped me find what exactly I wanted to do in photography. I did not always know I wanted to be a fashion photographer. In fact, I’ve tried every type of photography there is. In college I started to take fashion-influenced images. I then proceeded to take a fashion photography course that introduced me to the work of ‘the masters’—Avedon, Watson, Penn and more. This helped give me a perspective on fashion photography and also confirm that this was my desired career path.

In the end, education is not imperative. If you know you want to be a photographer, go work for a photographer whose work inspires you. You can learn most of what you need from them if you have real drive, passion and determination.

I’m sure DwA readers wanna know how you are finding your clients? Or they find you?

Finding portrait clients has been relatively easy. For ‘normal’ portrait a majority of my business has come from Facebook and word-of-mouth. Basically I started by photographing some local friends in the area, then I would post their images on Facebook and tag them, then all their friends would see the quality of my work, and then they would call and book my services. Fashion photography is much more of a challenge. Basically you just take it one step at a time.

To find my magazine clients, I slowly started to submit fashion editorials I have created to different fashion magazines. Slowly but surely my work was getting published in a variety of small magazines. Then as my work and contacts became stronger, I started submitting to larger magazines.

This editorial submission work is completely unpaid. Most people don’t realize this at all… there is NO pay or compensation for fashion particularly as smaller publications.

Instead magazines treat this as an advertisement for yourself. This is a showcase for your work, and helps you achieve the exposure and tearsheets that help you get an agent.

Once I started to get published more, magazine would hire me to shoot covers or images for special stories—and these pay. From there my exposure through model mayhem and within the industry have helped me find clients to shoot model portfolios, ‘look books’ for designers, and other misc jobs.

Fashion photography, until you are at ‘the top’, can be a bit messy with doing jobs here and there to build your reputation ad support yourself.

I often use dmy teaching and portraiture to fund the fashion photography while trying to get on my feet.

You started the FPI Workshops with Lara Jade, can you tell me more about it?

When I lived in London after college, I supported myself as a photographer by teaching 3-day fashion photography intensive courses. These were very popular and I had a great time doing it. Recently I have decided to start teaching these courses again in the US and started promoting the classes to Calumet, Unique Photo and other major camera companies. I very quickly got booked for NY, LA, SanFran, NJ and more.

These 3-day intensive courses provide photographers all the tools they need to successfully complete their first fashion shoots. They learn about inspiration, gathering a creative team, finding models, working with models, lighting, retouching and more. They will learn about getting editorials published and even have the opportunity to work 1-on-1 with professional styled models. It is a great learning opportunity.

I decided to bring Lara on as a partner for a few reasons. (1) Since she lives in England, she could help organized the European side of the business. She could arrange our courses with in London, France, Germany or wherever else we desired. (2) These classes could certainly benefit from having multiple instructors to help give the best one-on-one attention when needed. (3) Lara is a very talented individual and could certainly bring some important knowledge to the table.

You can learn more at fashonphotographyintensive.com.

Your first book “Linked Photographer: New Media and Social Networking” will be available in bookstores in May. What is the book about?

In short, this book helps photographers to utilize social networking to build a reputation, find clients and networking with colleagues to help their business grow. The book guides photographers through the tools and best practices of uses social media as a business tool. We cover blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Search Engine Optimization and more to provide photographers with the essential tools for online success.

I decided to write this book because after college I found that a great deal of my business for magazines and portraiture was coming DIRECTLY from social networking activities. I thought it would be very helpful for photographers to learn from my experiences and the experience of others to get online quickly and efficiently to reap the benefits.

The book will be out sometime this spring (probably May), and is published through Cengage (a large publisher).

Now when we know a little bit more about your career, I wanna know how your usually day looks like? New York-London relation?

My day varies every single day. No day is the same. Most days I wake up and spend all day behind my computer answering emails, responding to interview questions, writing blogs, retouching portraits and writing articles for magazines. Recently a majority of my time was spent on the book, and most other things fell to the wayside. Other days are packed with client shoots. I go into the studio and line up portraits back to back… each client is allotted about 2 hours for a typical portrait shoot. Other days are filled with networking… going around to different agencies, writing important emails, meeting up with potential clients.

The most exciting days are my fashion editorials. I come up with a concept, gather a creative team, and then spend a full day shooting the editorial.

After college I lived in London, and since have moved back to New York. Both cities provide amazing opportunities with fantastic creative minds. While I am mainly based in NY, I travel to London often for editorials and business opportunities.

In the end, do you have any advices for the beginners? Just simple short tips.

* Teach yourself and push yourself. Don’t rely on others or college to teach you what you have to know. Go out there and work for a photographer you admire. Watch online tutorials. Practice and experiment.

* Use social networking. Get yourself out there however you can—start a blog, have a Facebook page, get a twitter account. Do whatever you can to get your work in front of more eyes. Don’t be afraid to promote yourself and share your work with others. On similar note, use your social networking to share your knowledge and experiences. This will encourage people to pass your work around and to see you as an expert.

* Shoot what inspires you. We all have to shoot ‘boring work’ that pays the bills. That’s the nature of the game. But no matter how busy you are or how much work you have, you must make time to shoot for yourself. Shoot editorials or subjects that inspire you. It is this personal work that will be most powerful, and when seen by others will most likely spark the most interest. This personal work will likely get you more exposure and help others to understand your personal style.

* Start small, work up. You most likely won’t land big clients right away. Start with any work you can get. This will give you experience and money to fund your passions. Don’t be too proud to take small or insignificant jobs. Far too many photographer give up early because they don’t ‘hit it big’ early or because they are too proud to take the jobs that will pay the bills.

And a few words of mine…

Thank you Lindsay for sharing your story with us and for giving those important advices for begginers. Hope they will learn a lesson from your example.

Writing about people who I really like has always been the best spent time, love and passion. Today’s very interesting story is about my dear friend Marta Lamovšek, a photographer and art director extraordinary currently based in London. She was very individualistic as a kid and she still is. Marta’s personality is Idealist Champion, that’s means she is here to inspire (her primary purpose in this word).

My life has always been an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities, I always had a passion for novelty. The only thing I never seem to get bored of is meeting really fascinating people who inspires me.

Marta is extremely passionate when it comes to her work. She said photographs are her babies. Her best work has been produced when a client says “I want your style in it”. Marta has a director’s approach to shooting, it’s never about a pose, it’s always about an emotion and personality.

In over the past 13 years I did numerous of photographs for which I was commissioned: from covers of books to covers of magazines, from fashion editorials to advertising photography, I’ve done it all – from being an assistant to being an editor.

I’ve read her CV and I’m still catching my breath. Wow, amazing and successful girl. How old is she? 35? No way, she looks younger. Marta has collaborated with more than 30 different magazines like Cosmopolitan, Joy, Elle and Playboy. Unbelievably awesome! Marta also had one solo and several group exhibitions, the last one at Paris Fashion Week in 2009.

Interesting thing is that American filmmaker and visual artist David Lynch had a huge influence on Marta’s work and she admire him more than anyone else.

One year ago I had a dream I meet him, and today when I research for my final project at Central Saint Martins I can say it is a tribute to David Lynch, a tribute to inspiration he have me in the last 20 years through his art.

Marta intents to remain active in fashion and advertising photography as well as portraiture where she think she’s able to develop original ideas and become known for her specific style, also intent to start looking for gigs in London within an photography agency. However, after Marta’s graduation show at Central Saint Martins she will hopefully also exhibit her work in London’s galleries.

I would like to my work represent two Marta Lamovšek – one is a portrait-fashion-advertising photographer with an ability to create strong and timeless images, and another Marta Lamovšek, the artist would be the one who reveals dark secrets of the human soul and speaks of fears and obsessions.

About the photoset, The Stranger and the Gypsies

The Stranger and the Gypsies was described by world known English writer Warren Ellis who had on his web page published the photograph of Ali (the model) walking among gypsies. He said: “There’s something powerfully weird about this beautiful photoset by Marta Lamovsek, not least in this image, where the model really does look like an alien landed in eastern Europe.”

Marta’s story in brief was about “The search for the sense of “freedom” brought aristocratic woman the forgotten-from-the-world village of gypsies in the south of Macedonia. She was deeply touched by the passion for life and a raw attitude that gypsy culture possess.”

You don’t tell gypsies what they should do (for a good photo), they tell you that. You just have to treasure what you have within that exclusive moments as this is an intimate space of some people homes. One of the most memorable photo sets in my life.

To make this photo story possible they came there and just let go their rawness. They didn’t know what will happen in a minute after minute, Marta’s directional skills didn’t work with more than 30 wild kids around.

What means Zadeta od lajfa?

I wanted to know what the name of her blog means, and Marta answered. She came up with a name of the blog more than 3 years ago when she wanted to find words that would be a good metaphoric expression of what kind of person she is. Zadeta od lajfa “High on life” is a name that describes Marta’s enthusiastic nature, everyone that knows her know she become very passionate and excited about very ordinary things. And she’s constantly inventing new stuff to be excited about! Marta feels that the name has to inspire others, people who feels “high on life” loves life, they see it as a special gift, and strive to make the most out of it.

Isn’t her story interesting, very interesting? That’s just a little piece of her life, trust me. Marta I wish you much success and stay young as you feel. Bring us new creative work and good luck with your next exhibitions. Did I mentioned, you look like Cameron Diaz on this photo.

You others, be like Marta, high on life and forget about your age through art, regardless you’re too young or too old. Peace!

Finally some clothes and fashion design. I’m glad to present you a swedish fashion designer Lamija Suljević and her *Balkan inspired* collection. It’s important to note that you can see this collection right now during the Stockholm Fashion Week.

Lamija works mostly with luxurious garments and old hand-made techniques such as crochet. Half of her collections is hand made crochet (100% wool).

My main inspiration was the Balkan traditions, since I was born in Bosnia and my grandmother worked her entire life with hand made luxurious work.

She wants her work to be something more then just a garment on a hanger, that’s why Lamija often works with a whole concept. Lamija’s shoes are made in paper and the coins are something she has made into a jewellery.

It’s important to me that my work tells a story.

Enjoy the story.

It seems that the DwA‘s field of action is expanding on new categories. Great!

Thank you Lamija! Nice to meet you.