Lav2Capture Photography

Coffee addict photographer 3D designer and optimist

[lav2capturephotography]

I have been travelling for the last 15 years; Never in the past 15 years have I been belittled so much as I was in last week’s trip.

By ow it should be obvious that for the past 15 years of travelling, I was always on time for everything from the luggage drop off and control to the boarding gate. Last week’s trip came to break the tradition…-lol.

The day started as any usual travelling day starts. I woke up quite early to make sure that all was packed,and all was in order.After making sure that all was packed and ready it was time to depart. Reaching the airport I immediately left the largest luggage to get under the plane and I left to go towards the security check. As per the usual process I passed the check as normal and moved towards the Duty Free shopping floor.

By that time it was around 13:35 approximately, which meant that I ha d about 1.5 hours left to roam, since the gate was closing a little after 16:00… At this point I should point out that the flight’s departure time was exactly at 16:35… So it would stand to reason and it would make sense for anyone with a little common sense that the gates would make a final announcement at about 10 minutes before departure- (that would be 20past 16:00) and the gate would close five minutes later…

Having finished lunch it was about half three; me, like any reasonable being assuming that the gate would open around 15:45 to maybe 50, I stayed on the shopping floor- like any reasonable man… ( you will see why I keep saying it ) Since the plane was leaving 35 minutes past, i made my way towards the gate about 15 minutes earlier. I had by that time reached the gate at exactly 16:15. At some point, my attention was drawn on the board and that was the first “shock” for the day. The gate was closed. For that there was no doubt… what is even more shocking that I was not the only one that was left outside the plane- mind you though I was 15 whole minutes earlier there- there were another 20 people that were left outside the plane.

After trying to resonate with the ground personnel in a calm tone, they started shouting ad being rude. They stated that they checked our large luggages out and that we should return any spirits bought from the shopping floor…they became extremely rude and aggressive and we almost came into hands. They real “cherry on top” was that they had the audacity, to tell us that if we wanted to fly with the same flight the next day (24 hrs exactly- as there was not her flight that was leaving at that time the next day) we were to pay 100£ each…

At this point I was having none of it, so I decided to “rebook” the flight from another airport, as I was not going to sit there for 24 hrs. I managed to find a flight from Gatwick with a 12 hour difference and it was slightly less expensive; the flight was leaving from Gatwick at 05:50 in the morning… there was a total of 12 hours that I had to go through; 4 hours to Gatwick and 8 hours waiting at the airport.

My advice towards anyone who wishes to travel from that airport and with that company, is, please avoid travelling with Ryanair as they have little respect over any situation and anyone in general. We could have very well been boarded on that flight at 16:35 were it not for the twot rude and aggressive people of staff. Oh and before I forget it the word refund is not part of their policy nor their vocabulary.

[lav2capturephotography]

I don’t often upload self portraits, so here is one from today. Shot on an iPhone 12 using portrait mode.

[lav2capturephotography]

Phew, this week was one of the most intense ones, really…

As you might know ( if I mentioned it in any of my last posts…) I went for four days Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is a great graphic city full of canals and little corners to explore. It has great food and a vast number of museums.

However the reason going there was a very different one from just having fun… I won’t go into detail but let me tell you that I found something FAR MORE valuable than just fun…

[lav2capturephotography]

The most revealing trip ever…

Amsterdam 2021

[lav2capturephotography]

Starry Night

[lav2capturephotography]

The Film Look Series.

[lav2capturephotography]

Here is the film look I promised a while back.

[lav2capturephotography]

Update on Gmax and future events

Well, least time I wrote here was a bout that stupid unnecessary London trip that cost me 50£.

Today’s post is about strike no3. To get this from the start. It was another usual day where

Mark calls me and we got the usual -things need to be done conversation. At some point he says, look at the email as I send you something; to my surprise there was an e mail from a scheme program from goldsmiths university. At first I didn’t get the point of it and then realised that the mail was another way of extending my contract to Gmax till a “more permanent” solution was found. The next couple of days would be the ones that made this strike no3.

At some point in one of those days Mark texts me that the people from that scheme will contact me, I tell him that I will wait and in fact they do.

During the call the day asked two questions; was I out of formal education?and out of employment and the second one was was I staying in London? There was the problem. I said that I would need to talk to Mark first. When we had another conversation about the matter he simply said, “give your old address”. Of course I questioned Mark about the seriousness of what he had said and he was adamant about it.

That was the moment that I decided not to proceed with this. I simply can not give my old address to sign up to something I can’t even attend. There is the money issue as well… will Mark pay my tickets for three days? I think not; in fact he has still not compensated me for the 50£ I lost, even though he said he would.

In other news a few days after this unfortunately disheartening conversation, I came across a job placement at the Norfolk council; it was for a course facilitator for the creative department. I applied and pretty soon I had interview. The interview consisted of a set of questions and a ten minute presentation of a part of the course. There were also a set of scenarios which as a teacher I would have to find out how to control an resolve. At the end of this, the lady said that in the next few weeks she will send me an email that says what necessary paperwork I must have with me to proceed. To me that means that I have secured the placement but entirely, not until I get that e mail.

That’s all for this post #staytuned for more updates

[lav2capturephotography]

Thought I’d post this winter-y photo since most of my posts are without any images, also tried to sort of replicate a film look which I will upload in the next post…#staytuned

[lav2capturephotography]

A glimpse of hope

The last post was on the 26th of May about expecting the unexpected and always be prepare for the big turnaround.

Well it seems that it is exactly what happened a few weeks back. So let's get things from the beginning shall we?

I had started attending some meeting in the local job centre just in case something popped up and it was interesting enough.

Surely that is what happened a few weeks into being present in those meetings.

There is this kickstart scheme, which is essentially that an employer looks for staff through the job centre and has certain benefits ( I am not going into details )

In one of those meetings the people responsible for organising it, gave us a list that contained all the employers that were attending that day and told us that if we wanted we could give an interview at the same day. One condition to attend the specific meeting was to dress smart...

At some point as I was going over the positions available, I came across a graphics designer placement.

In the next few minutes I had to decide if I was going to give an interview or not.

I decided the first ( to give the interview ).

So the lady that was part of the organising team took me to the desk that the employer was waiting, in this case was the first floor as the we were on the second.

After greeting and meeting with the employer, he proceeded to ask me a few questions in regards to what I was working with.

Half way through my response, he exclaims "wait!" and leaves the office. about a minute later he arrives with a form and with a pencil;

He goes on to say that he has heard quite a few people today for that placement but no-one said what I did. He explained briefly the history of his company and he closed the conversation with a simple "I want to hire you"

Needless to say that at this moment I was left with quite mixed feeling as it was peculiar that he did not asked any further questions in regards to my work. One of the things he said during his part of explanation was that the position offered complete creative control over the decisions that would have to be made. Initially I thought that I was supposed to give more that one interviews.

So no I was hired by G-MAX TRACKSTARS a charitable organisation that provides collegiate coaching to young and aspiring athletes.

The position of the graphics designer is a 6 month placement with the minimum wage payment and a 25 hour rota per week.

[lav2capturephotography]

Expect the unexpected...

I want to start this entry by quoting a Disney character, and specifically General Matthias from Frozen 2. "Be prepared. Just when you think you found your way, life will throw you onto a new path."

It is funny how little attention I paid to that quote when the film first came out; I was so amazed, by the quality of the animation and textures used to put the film together, that I completely neglected that phrase. So my last entry here was about a new opportunity that had presented herself whilst I was taking care of some things in Greece; The problem is I never got any other information other than what I posted here. The guy I was supposed to contact never reached out again and as a result the whole thing was a bust. That happened on March 27th.

Now, a month later, I must say that I am completely dumbfounded by what came my way. One day as I was going about my usual routine in 3d design, (btw I will make sure I upload a few samples of my work here as well ), a guy out of the blue contacted me to say something that initially I did not believe was in fact true.

At this point I would like to remind you that whatever form of 3d design I do is still in the infant stage; consequently I am not a professional yet. Now that I made things a clear on that part, let me tell you what this guy told me.

He called me saying that he is the general manager of a company, of which the name I can not currently disclose; He went on to say that, this company designs 3D maps of airports from all over the world and basically sells them to Microsoft for one of the most famous games they got - The MSFS A.k.A Microsoft Flight Simulator. Yes you read that right.

So as we went during the first call we talked about what software the company uses and what exactly is needed. He explained that I would be responsible for the 3d modelling and texturing of the airport .

initially I was shocked and I thought at some point that he was lying, so I tried to keep a small basket and not show much of my excitement. But come on lets be honest here, its as crazy as it sounds and there is something even crazier than that.

Right after the call we set up a meeting, he showed up

in the meeting we discussed more or less the same thing as the ones in the call and he gave the airport's name; We also talked about the payments and the amount that each project would pay.

The craziest part of all this talk that has been going on the past few days is that he offered me a pace in the offices that the company will open in London right after the pandemic ends and and he suggested that if I am satisfied from the whole collaboration as an external designer he would be happy to grant me the direction of the offices hehe re in London ! finally he made clear that there would be a contract, a thing that he actually delivered!

So I will come back to that phrase with which I started this post.

"Be prepared... just when you think you found your way, life will throw you onto a new path."

I used not to believe in second chances but now with that I am starting slowly to recover my faith in that.

Alas, I am still holding a small basket. Only time will tell.

Have a great day!

[lav2capturephotography]

New opportunities -Netflix and Amazon?

Hello guys!

Last time I wrote here was to let you know about the progress of the latest phontobook "New Normal" which has to do with the impact of measures taken against Covid-19.

Since the last time, I had a quite pleasant encounter whilst I was in Greece. This person posted on a group that I am part of and he presented himself as an actor long with other two people, saying that they made a production company and they have a finished treatment and script for an 8-episode series that they want to shoot and give to Netflix Amazon and HBO Max...So they were basically asking if anyone is interested to shoot their series... As of this writing I have made one contact with them and I have arranged a meeting with one of them in London. I must say that I am both delighted and curious for the meeting that lies head.

In the short video call we had, we only said the very basics as in we introduced to each other and we mainly said a few things for our background. Towards the end of the call he asked for my cv so he could show it to the other two peopled he assured me that in the next day I would know what they thought of it.

To my surprise, the next day indeed I had an answer and that made it even more difficult to question the whole thing, though I am still holding a small basket... He said that the guys took a look at my cv and for them I am shortlisted as one of the few people that they want for the shoot!

While its a great honour to hear such words, especially when the work lies o another field of work, I still am holding my horses till I hear certain things during the meeting, although I won't hide the fact that I made wild thoughts in my head like, that I would be watching my name in the rolling credits of a huge series...

For example I would like to hear that they have made contact with all three aforementioned subscription channels. Another would be to present me with a shooting schedule and a budget... You see there are a million factors for such a plan to go smoothly forward without backtracking for any kind reason.

From what I have seen the budget part is currently small to almost non-existent.

Anyways, I can't say much more of that till I have officially met with one of them and heard the whole plan.

Till then stay tuned ...

[lav2capturephotography]

The New Normal Series PT_3 Other notes and completion

The past three months I have been rearranging the Photos of the book in order to achieve the best results in terms of causing the viewer/reader the proper emotional response.  The last post only covered the tonality and colour platte of the book. The most significant development is that the book now has the form of a comparison book; it compares Larissa and London. To answer your question for you before you make it; “Why?” “ Why did I chose Larissa and London” I will agree that the first time someone hears it it doesn’t make much sense as Larissa has 200.000 population and London has approximately 12.000.000 in population. I want to give you the size of impact that the pandemic has created over the past year. 

 In these three months that I have been in London I have been keeping in touch with a close friend of mine and he has been informing me that things run like nothing is actually wrong in Larissa. In contrast,London has been a ghost town... yes, you read that right; I never expected to see London that empty. I went only a few times out to get some shots in order to complete the book. A major change that happened during the development is that; -in the first post I mention that there are both day and night photos, unfortunately due tot the prohibition in movement from 21:00 that is in power in Greece since 06/11/2020 I was not able to get more than one. More over London’s distances are enormous to cover and with the fines in place is hard to calculate when the police will strike.- The colour palette has been maintained in the orange/reddish and yellow hues. 

Here is a sample of the pages of the final version of the book.

All the photos in the book have captions giving some explanation and context

[lav2capturephotography]

The New Normal Series PT_2 Other notes

Some other worth looking at note are; the tonality of the book- that includes the colour palette as well- the editing, the composition and the subjects included. Upon looking at the dummy you will notice that the palette is constrained at the yellow, orange and reddish hues. That actually has been done on purpose to make the time that the pictures are taken (Autumn) more prominent. The colour palette plays a pivotal role for the viewer as according to the selected palette the proper emotional response is created. I will include a link to the pdf for you guys a bit later.

#StayTuned

[lav2capturephotography]

The New Normal Series PT_1

The new normal series has been in development

for some time not but only now, I’ve decided to write about it and that is due to the fact that the effects of this pandemic were not really visible up until now (November) As of the time of writing this entry the pandemic in Greece has cost 3.000 lives and in Larissa according to the statistics 195 people have the new COVID_19 This is the result of the past 5 months of people going out not keeping the distances as the doctors have repeatedly said needs to be done. The book is a visual guide as stated in the introductory note, as to what was really happening mere days before the second this time semi national lockdown was imposed.  It is a book that counts approximately 10 pages long. It includes both day and night photos... Yesterday however I’ve been thinking, because I will soon return to London back to work to make this a differences book. By that I mean to actually showcase the difference in facing the pandemic between the Uk and Greece. Lastly, the book will available to download to pdf as a dummy_book and once the pandemic reaches the end it will be printed.

tbc

[lav2capturephotography]

The new normal series

As you know COVID-19 has been an everyday nightmare, occupying the entire 2020. From March till July Greece was put to national lockdown, not allowing flights to inner locations such as islands nor to outer locations such as Germany, Italy France. In this lockdown we were not allowed to leave our homes unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. This had as a result with all of us stranded in our homes not being able to do anything. physical or practical. Most of the people decide to take upon a new hobby- and I include myself to that as I acquired some coding knowledge (SWIFT 5.0). To me this had as a result not to use my camera since last February. I t has been exactly 10 months since I caught up with my photography skills and I was feeling a little rusty- so two days ago I decided  to grab my camera and be inspired by the entire situation and create something strong. I grabbed my camera and went out and about the city. The summer months there was some typical movement through the city as most of them were not vacating somewhere due to circumstances. I must confess that these three months were not motivating me enough to grab the camera. The past two days I got some photos and I decided that instead of throwing them directly to the external drive to create a phonebook project.  Yesterday I was looking for a catchy title to draw the eye of the viewer/reader and then I remembered an expression, my dear mother had said way way back when still in London -and I quote “ well what did you expect honey it is THE NEW NORMAL” and that immediately stuck with me!. it matches perfectly with the new regime of restraints the government has placed to battle/tackle the corona pandemic. It has created a new normal. It has created a new reality; at least for us the Greeks, because for all I know we only know ouzo, tsipouro tzatziki, gyro, souvlaki and drinking booze and partying without caring about the existing circumstances and protective meters- well neither do I- but for me there is a particular reason. what reason is there for the others? I have not yet determined the amount of pages or the size of the book nor the price. but I could share with you one shot that will definitely be included in the book.

[lav2capturephotography]

The end of an idea

Welcome back dear readers! two months ago was the last post. You probably wondering why I do not post regularly here or on youtube. I will start of by saying that this period from March till now November it has been the most nerve racking and most anxious period of my life. Corona virus hit us hard and when I say hard I mean pretty hard, that hard that will leave a long time bruise. 

It destroyed people’s jobs , dreams and hopes for a better tomorrow. a small recession (of the virus) took place over the summer but that was not enough for anyone. On September we started climbing again and another lockdown replaced the smiles on people’s faces with nothing but sadness and anger. I will not however bother you anymore with this, and jump straight to the main point. 

As you know, me and Jenny the friend of mine from kefalonia had discussed to move back to London and create a multi discipline arts studio. In the early days of the idea’s development we communicated via messenger video call and we were outlining the foundation of the business. After the first discussion I saw no “movement” on the other side and thus I started creating social media profiles - e-mail addresses as well as some creative material so we could start having some small commissions till we get to London, we were hoping even to the smallest ones. during that I took notice that only I was producing marketing material and  I was trying to keep up. After one month of uploading nothing but my work on instagram, I tried to approach Jenny as kindly as I possibly could, asking her what would she do. Her constant reply was of the sort of “I will make something, I have to get myself out of the swamp of sadness. I will make something soon.” I soon brushed it off as the normal answer due to the whole situation. Around the start of the second month of the development, we started discussing the legal side of the business. I took the liberty to post my question to a facebook group that is associated with the Greeks in London; and I was warmly greeted by a national/ inter-national trades lawyer. We had a quite extensive talk on the matter, and he was more than extremely helpful.

Well into the second moth of the development, I still had not seen any of her work, so I asked again and unfortunately received the same answer. I kept doing my research without revealing much information to her on purpose, as I begun to have some serious doubts about her involvement. Drawing towards the end of the second month she called me to talk with mean she was crying. Needless to say that I had already started making something out of all this; when she calmed down she said that she was determined to leave, whatever it was that made her sad behind and focus on our plan. Of course I had my doubts. and... I was right... through all the rest days before the month was out, she kept saying, that she is not sure about herself and that she doesn’t know what will happen or if she can leave; ( Move to London) I kept myself from talking at that point, because I knew that if I started a conversation, it wouldn’t end well. We talked and talked and talked all this time was for general things, but beyond that point nothing else; no mention for the progress of our work, nothing.

Finally, a couple of days into the third moth she texted me that she could n longer continue talking about that studio and that she could not invest time on that. She also said that , and I quote “ Your negative energy is so bad that you drag me down with you and I am unable to do anything”.I want to remind you at that point that  she was the one that she kept saying she needed a sign and that se was crying... - I don’t see my negative energy here... only my appetite to work on an idea, to create something, to give to people through photography. And that is pretty much how the idea of the multi-discipline arts studio faded out of existence, along with her.

 It is really disappointing when “you” as a person an artist or what ever you call yourself become dependent or at least have high hopes and count on a person and then you get put aside because the person you were counting on, doesn’t simply care about you existing relationship wether professional or friendship or anything. 

The difference between me and Jenny is that I am still trying... I never stopped curating the instagram page I created, I never stopped learning thing and creating new stuff, and also the other major difference is that I will actually return to London and I will try to make most of the idea functional to the extent I can. Jenny never left Greece, she was in Kefalonia and went to Athens and that was it for her. Also another difference is that we are 10 years apart. she is 34 I am 24. ( it is a difference not applicable -to me at least- in the framework of a business )

If you want to make, your mind can find every possible way to achieve your goal.

She stopped I didn’t. I keep moving...