UY ZONƎ

  

Leading up to Berlin based fashion label UY’s third anniversary UY ZONƎ, co-founder Idan Gilony, along with his partner Fanny Lawaetz,  asked analog photographer Bobby Collins to once again photograph another celebration of the existence of UY. 

 

 

Idan Gilony

What inspired the creation of the label UY, and what makes it different?

– Our Inspiration comes from our surrounding, different artists and Berlin’s characters, nightlife and music.  

How did you and Fanny Lawaetz meet, and how do you complement each other as artists?

– We met in fashion school, where we shared a working space together, we realised that we have a similar aesthetic taste and we inspired each other, very fast we understood that we are good partners and became a team.

What was the initial goal for UY Zone?

– Once a year we are celebrating UY’s existence, every year we are expressing it in a different way, this year we decided to collaborate with the Choreographer Matan Zamir in order to create a contemporary dance performance which was inspired by the theme of the collection – post war era.

What inspired the topic of UY Zone’s third zone?

– Third Zone was inspired by this exact significant turning point in people’s lives, melancholic yet slightly hopeful.

What is next for UY?

– Next for UY is the “ready to wear collection” inspired by the conceptual UY ZONE collection.

Bobby Collins

– The cameras I used were a 35mm film Canon f1 with a 50mm lens and an SX-70 Polaroid Land Camera. With the Canon, I used Kodak Portra 160iso film and Adox Silvermax 100 iso B&W film.

– With the event theme being ‘Post-War’, and with it also being primarily a fashion show, I wanted to mix the imagery, by using long shutter settings in dim lighting, to equalize the reappearing bright lighting, as the lighting for the event often fluctuated.

– In turn, the longer exposed shots had a ghostly feel to them, which was what I was aiming for. A hoary effect also occurred with some of the longer exposed images, as dust particles and debris appeared, due to the old camera (that I don’t take too much care of because i usually photoshop this out).

– With the polaroid, I used expired film, which also cause ghostly streaks and worn out looking spots across the image. I basically, empirically, experimented with some shots, and it worked out pretty well!

 

 

– And with other techniques, I was able to keep a continuity with the lighting/feel, and was able to make clear shots of the clothing and overall style…

– This is the third time I have shot for UY, and so I’m pretty keen to what they are looking for! They had a couple of volunteer photographers who were shooting digitally, however, I was invited to shoot on film, as they are looking for something artistic along with something documentative, considering that film cameras have a better range at producing many familiar, or classic effects.

 

 

 

Credits:

Photography by Bobby Collins

Idan Gilony interview by Karl Linderoth