Ikars and Photoriga.com

So this is first post since summer. As anybody who try to maintain blog knows how difficult to do that. Life usually take over. And sometimes it’s only sheer determination is making this happen.

So my first post will be an interview. The interview that is few month late. Unfortunately as I mentioned life takes over. In my case loads of things happened. About some of them I will tell in future posts. So instead of posting an interview and leaving it without sharing I decided to wait a bit. So know when I will make more effort in to getting my blog up there I think it’s only fair to share this interview with all of you guys. 

So long story short (and people that know me know I love long stories): I found Ikars’s blog http://www.photoriga.com/, while I was looking for and image of bridge in Riga.

by Ikars, photoriga.com

He agreed for me to use one of his images for my top image, free of charge. So I'm returning a favour and learning more about creative people in the same time. 

So here is a small interview. 

How old are you? 

I'm 28.

Where you from?

Originally, from Bauska town, now spending my time mostly in Riga, less so in Bauska.

Have you always had interest in photography? 

Well, at first I wanted to say "No", but then remembered that in my early childhood I always looked at photo books (Soviet time photo books of Riga, then there was one about former Czechoslovakia, etc) and photos in magazines with great interest. In fact, I even tried to re-draw them and forced to do it my grandmother too :). So, the interest about visual things and photography has been there in me since my childhood.

by Ikars, photoriga.com

How did you start this? Why photography and not something else? 

I started to do this around ~2005 when bought my first camera (Fuji S7000). But I was inspired to this step after I was in music festival in 2005 summer, with loaned camera and then I suddenly realized how cool this is - to take photos where I've been and to look back at them later. It was a very amateuristic start, of course and even now I'm still taking many pictures of whom other may wonder "What's interesting there?" Primarily I feel an urge in me - to document almost all environment around me, the most different cityscapes, and I'm not very exacting in terms of it's beauty/uniqueness or smt.

Is it you main occupation, or you have a job, and you take pictures in your free time? As I understand that it's not easy to make a living from taking pictures. 

No, of course, it's not my basic occupation, but it has brought quite a solid side income in recent ~2 years - and especially the blog has helped to that (people search for Riga photos in the net and come up with my blog, then contact me). 

How do you come up with different themes? 

I guess, part of the answer I already wrote (Primarily I feel an urge in me - to document almost all environment around me). I just see interest in many things, either it be House of Blackheads or even some rusty pillar sometimes :) 

House of Blackheads by Ikars, photoriga.com

How did you decided to get a blog to post your photos? 

Well, it seems I was inspired by some other City daily photo blog and immediately felt this is a great how to regularly, day by day share my photos. Btw, before that and also until now I'm participating in Skyscrapercity community as Vecais Sakarnis (one of my Riga threads here: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=604778)

Other thing is, from personal experience I know that to make a good picture and get a perfect shot sometimes you need to make hundreds of shots. 

Yes, I'm also photographing very much and sometimes I happen to be in right time, place, angle, mood, etc, to get some good shot :)

Would be great if you could share some photos that maybe only took few shoots to take and then some that took ages and ages to do.

For example, this one asked a few tries to achieve the best possible light and composition: http://www.photoriga.com/2012/02/frostwork-2.html. Usually it takes at least few tries to get a nice picture (for adjusting settings, at least), even if the subject is very gratifying, like here: http://www.photoriga.com/2012/05/summernight-city.html Of course, much much more tries are for difficult light situations and special conditions, like, to catch these thunderstorm shots ( which are still not perfect, of course) I took some 500 shots of whom mostly were only black sky. Also firework shots are very tricky thing - mostly depends on luck. Maybe professionals know much more about how to take them, but I still think mostly it depends on luck (in case of firework shots).

Thanks.

So that is it. Translation in to Russian if you interested will be up next. Hope you enjoy this interview. More interesting post will be coming up. 

Stay tuned.