Iza Ties Her Shoes
Iza Ties Her Shoes is a series taken for the period of six months in a spontaneous manner with no posing or setting the scene. The project depicts the struggle of Izabella with her constantly untying laces and the action of tying them back. Izabella Bielawska is a stylist and a model at the Selective Management Warsaw.
Her peculiar way of dealing with laces at different times of the day, various locations, by pulling her leg on a close object heightened from the ground, with a cigarette gripped between her lips, and an expression is that of the professional disrupted from her important route to perform this particular action. Humoristic way to view reality and the sharp eye to recognize the details is the forte of the project. In the end, you realize that not even the shoe change with the new season or style can solve the problem!
Wiktor Malinowski is a photographer living between London and Warsaw, and a creative director at his boutique studio Studio Malinowski. In his works, he merges the ordinary with a unique vision, the angle that takes the photo to a new perspective while adding a twist of the emotion sparking from the person’s facial expression or the pupil of the eye, the thought passing in the model’s mind.
Check out our interview with Wiktor Malinowski
‘From the very beginning, aesthetic was not a priority, none of the pictures were posed or set in a specific place’
Hi Wiktor, glad to have you back on our mag with this fascinating project! How are you feeling after completing it and working on it for half a year?
Hi guys! I'm absolutely satisfied with the feedback from the people that I'm showing pictures - they're laughing! From the very beginning, aesthetic was not a priority, none of the pictures were posed or set in a specific place so, in some way, this is the very first project of mine in which I was using a sense of humor rather than my eye.
‘I think that the funniest ones were when she was super mad that I'm taking the pictures’
What was the initial idea or occurrence that set this project to motion?
Well, honestly there was no initial idea. I'm documenting my life day by day aside from the shoots that I'm working on constantly and considering them as the PHOTOGRAPHS. When I met Iza, and I saw her funny way of tightening laces with her leg high on some objects, it was fascinating enough to take a picture. Then it came out that she has a big problem with her laces which gave me an opportunity to take an enormous amount of pictures.
‘People were coming and laughing all the time and telling me later that it's cool that the subject was so accessible and candid’
Tell about the exhibition of the project in Warsaw and the preparation for it. What were the memorable questions or comments you got then?
It was exhibited as a part of the series of exhibitions organised by Warsaw young artists collective called BAS. Curator Misia Sobieraj asked me if I have something that I want to show and I've shared this funny series that she loved. People were coming and laughing all the time and telling me later that it's cool that the subject was so accessible and candid.
If the series was a movie which director you think would do the best job filming it? Why?
I think that Romain Gavras with his super-fast cuts and powerful floating camera movement would be a perfect director!
