The Colorful World Of Sophie Lakow - ISSUE 52
Sophie Lakow on the Berlin photo scene, half frame photography, travelling & being a mum.
Housekeeping
Another week down! How are you all feeling out there? I am flat out with a few projects right now but having a lot of fun and feeling very creative.
Today we have the lovely Sophie Lakow joining us but before we get into that I have a few updates for you.
I have been holding some incredible sessions with fellow creatives and photographers lately and I have noticed that we have a lot of ground to cover! You guys are an ambitious bunch so, I am pleased to announce that my 1:1 creative sessions are now 90 minutes not 60. My previous sessions have run longer anyway and I want you to feel like you have plenty of time to bounce ideas back and forth and also ask any questions too. We are all pretty layered and I find a lot of the block for people is often mindset related and that is something I want to give ample time and attention to.
If you are interested in learning more about a 1:1 with me then hit the button below for info or to secure your spot!
A new issue of Girls To The Front zine is in the works and submissions are open so go check it out and be sure to snag a copy of the first issue if you haven’t already! It’s such a cool publication and supports both creative females and some important charities too.
I am working on a free resource right now that is a guide of sorts for the modern creative and I am so excited to put it out into the world! Keep your eyes peeled.
Next week we have a giveaway so be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss out. Okay that’s enough Luce , let’s meet Sophie!
Hey Sophie, Thanks for joining us here at the LL newsletter. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Hi everyone, my Name is Sophie Lakow and I am a film photographer from Berlin/Germany. I am not a photographer by profession, but actually a film and music video producer.
I grew up in the 90s before digital photography came up and that's why film to me is the "original" way of photography. I started to be interested in photography at a very young age and my parents gave me a simple point and shoot as a kid. As a teenager I switched from point and shoots to SLRs (the first one I owned was a Pentax MX and not too long after I got a Nikon F801s, that is my main camera to this day). I also learned to develop and hand print b/w film as a teenager - I loved it and always wanted to get back to it, but since I was interested in a lot of other stuff too, I actually never did. When digital photography came up I had some small digicams I took everywhere and took tons of snaps with (of which I have exactly zero pictures left of due to very bad data management). In my twenties I went back to film, but I never had any serious ambition in photography. I am someone who is very self-critical about everything I do, so I never thought I was any good or someone would be interested in my pictures. When I started to work in the film industry and then attended film school I was really intimidated by all the other creative people I met. Especially by all the cinematography students, because everyone was super talented and professional (also regarding photography). It took me some time to get some confidence regarding my photography and I only recently started to share my photos on a public Instagram profile.
We connected over on IG and we seem to have a lot in common. Can you describe your photography style and approach for us please?
For a long time photography mostly meant documenting moments, people and places that seemed important to me. Over time my approach shifted towards pictures that don't show many people or tell too much about the places where they were taken. I really love colours and details of things and places (so it might come as no surprise that my most used focal length is 50mm). I like to play with aperture and different perspectives/angles and - like you - I am shooting in vertical/portrait orientation most of the time.
I am actually an introverted person so approaching people for pictures is something that doesn't come natural to me, and that’s why something like street photography f.e. isn’t something you’ll see of me. I recently watched the "Walkie Talkie" episode with Trevor Wisecup and that actually gave me anxiety, the way he's flashing into the faces of complete strangers is crazy to me (he does a great job though and is actually very charming with everyone)…
Like me you are a mum - how has this affected your creativity in general?
Becoming a mum definitely was the biggest transition in my life so far, but also led to me feeling drawn to photography more than ever. - Taking care of a baby/small child means your attention has to be on them almost all the time and it's often simply not possible to focus on something else. Photographing means purposely putting my focus on something else and that to me feels like a special way of freedom/me-time now and became a counterweight to that part of motherhood I described before. I just feel like it’s very important to and for me to take time for photography and it’s connecting me with the person I am besides being a mother.
But - since you can literally not turn your back on a small kid like my 2-year-old-daughter - taking pictures while being out in the world with her is still not really possible. In conclusion I now have to actively plan when and where I am going to take pictures. That's something I haven't done before I became a Mum and I would say it's definitely helping my creativity! - So bottom line, as a Mum I have less time in general for hobbies and my creative work, but I am more focused now, which is a good thing! But of course I am now regretting not being more focused on photography before becoming a mum when I still had all the possibilities ;)
Talk to me about the art/photo scene in Berlin. When I hear Berlin I always think of cool things and when I visited there many years ago it felt like everyone was doing something creative?
To be honest I don't really feel like knowing much about or being part of a photography scene. There are so many people in Berlin doing creative things that every scene has a thousand subscenes and it's impossible to know about everyone and everything that is going on...
I think Berlin itself can be a good place to take photos, but it’s very subjective what’s interesting to you and I feel it’s a big difference if you grew up in Berlin or moved here. Since I lived in Berlin my whole life some things just seem too familiar and ordinary to me to get me interested in. I would say to me Berlin can be very inspiring but also very much the opposite. Especially during the winter Berlin get's very gray and dark… Like any big city Berlin has a great variety of museums, galleries and exhibitions to look at different art and photography, which I think is really, really great. My favorite place is the C/O Berlin where I've seen many great photo exhibitions, most recently a big William Eggleston retrospective that I loved!
But engaging more with the photo community from Berlin is something I definitely plan on doing more in the future! (So if any Berliners are reading this newsletter: send me a DM and we can go on a photowalk soon.)
Are you working on a series at the moment Sophie? I know you shoot half frame is that a format you feel is conducive to sequencing or working themes?
I am not actively working on a series. - At the moment I am just all about having fun and going with the flow. Shooting half-frame really fits that mode because I feel like you have to worry less because you have twice the frames. Also half frame gives you a nice extra layer for creativity to experiment with the diptychs. But I actually have quite a list of ideas for projects and sort of need to decide what I would like to pursue first.
Also I would like to try new things technically f.e. shoot medium format for the first time or experiment with night photography (someone in my family owns a Leica M6 with the legendary f/1 Noctilux Lens and I guess I could borrow it for such a project). Also I will try to come more out of my comfort zone, that f.e. could mean I might start a documentary portrait project. Also I would love to do small jobs for clients like restaurants, design labels or also musicians - pretty much like your recent client work. But we will see what happens when - I am still a Mum of a small child and I am also currently looking for a “real job”…
Over on IG it looks like you have done some travelling. What would your dream place be to photograph and why?
Yes, you are right, I have done some traveling. Actually growing up my family didn’t have much money so we never really traveled anywhere and I left Europe for the first time when I was already in my late twenties. When I met my partner we started travelling together and I instantly loved it. Travelling is very inspiring to me, but in the past it often seemed like a hustle to me to take a big camera and many rolls of film so I didn't shoot as much as I would now.
I also had some major photography failures whilst traveling. Like the time when the only camera I took on a trip through Latin America (that was planned to happen over six months), broke after one month and the rolls I shot before that were kind of fucked up by a lab in Mexico City. When I finally managed to get my hands on a new camera in Bogota I didn’t know that only days later we would’ve to cut our trip short because Covid would take off… At the end of this Latin-America-trip we would've also gone to New York City, and I am still sad that didn’t happen. NYC definitely is a place I always wanted to go and also photograph, but that also seems a bit cliche to me.
In 2019 my partner and I went to Tokyo to produce and direct a music video but we were so caught up in work that I only managed to shoot one roll of (slide) film that then got cross developed due to a misunderstanding with the lab, so another big fail. I definitely would like to go back to Tokyo/Japan as a tourist, but also I feel like it has become the number one destination for hip western photographers, so it’s also a bit cliche. I am also very keen on visiting South Korea and Hong Kong. But besides these cliches I would really love to one day photograph some countries in Central/East Asia and Eastern Europe like Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Georgia, Bosnia or Romania.
As I mentioned, our styles are so alike and you seem to also be drawn to shooting the colour red. Can you tell us what draws you to that colour?
I think I like strong colours in general and not only red in particular and also not only regarding photography... The music videos I worked on were also always really colourful (like this one or this one).
But that being said, I think red definitely holds a special place for me and also in general the color palette. This is a spontaneous explanation because I never really thought about it theoretically, but I feel like red is the one of the primary and secondary colours that is the least common in nature so red feels more artificial and often stands in a big contrast to its (natural) surroundings.
Finally, where can people find you, connect and come say Hello?
You can find me on Instagram and you can send me an e-mail to sophielakow@gmail.com if there is anything anyone would like to discuss.
Also I am setting up a print shop on Etsy at the moment that you can find here but only has a few print options online yet.
Some last words: Thank you so much for your interest in my photography and sharing your platform, I really appreciate it! I really love this about you, that you are so supportive of other photographers! Also I really really love your work and your channel and I hope we will meet in person one day.
A huge thank you to Sophie for sharing with us here at Love Lucy. If you would like to be featured shoot me an email with some of your work and topics you would enjoy chatting about! Go say hi to Sophie and follow her work too - she is def one of my favs on the gram.
See you next week guys - Love Lucy xx
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