A good friend of mine, while talking with me about my photography a couple of years ago, once advised “Don’t forget about your roots. Early Annika.”
It felt strange & presumptuous for me to think about “early Annika” considering I had really only just begun, hardly a year prior. I had just started cutting my teeth on photographing people & was grateful that sessions were being booked early on, yet humbled with the knowledge of how much I had to learn on so many fronts.
I asked him to clarify. It was this shoot with my friend Ela he was referring to.
I immediately knew what he meant by going back to your roots.
My friend Ela is beautiful but she is not a model & while I was confident enough & ready to call myself a photographer, this was one of the very first shoots I ever had with a human being.
My focus was on almost nothing technical & more on energy & connection, intuitive composition & motion, all still very key elements in my craft.
As I learn to grow in my craft, the demand for improvement on the technical front takes on increased importance. My own personal philosophy is to allow those developments to act complementary to the heart of my work, which is all about spirit & movement, photography that energizes & candid portraits that connect. These are values that have been important to me from the very beginning.
I assured my friend that he had nothing to worry about. After which I am quite sure we had a hearty Salut & another German beer!
Photos taken in Summer 2011 with Ela in Bavaria
