Nima Salimi| Art for Art | San Francisco Portrait Photography

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Since the beginning of 2014, I have been working on my year-long personal project, Art for Art. Once a month, I find a fellow photographer whose work I admire, and I photograph them; they photograph me. We’ll get to see each other work; we’ll explore how different or similar our styles might be; and we can challenge ourselves to step in front of the lens rather than staying comfortably hidden. Best of all, we’ll get to walk away newly inspired by a fellow artist.

View the full set of previous shoots in the series here: Art for Art.

After shooting in NYC, LA, and Barcelona, April’s shoot was the first to be back at my home base in San Francisco. I met my friend Nima at Sutro Baths for some sun-filled portraits.

Anna Wu x Nima Salimi | Art for Art photographers portraits

Our Styles:

 I absolutely love Nima’s photography. He creates such evocative, human images and has a great big following on instagram because of it. I think my images tend to be brighter, happier, softer, but I’ve definitely been inspired and influenced by Nima’s style lately!

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

The Shoot:

Nima and I both travel a great deal. It’s probably one of the reasons we get along and I love his photography so much. But it also made coordinating this shoot a little challenging. We pushed it all the way to the end of April but got an amazingly beautiful, sunny day out of it. The shoot was great, and I felt like it was a fun challenge to shoot in such bright sun.

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

Nima Salimi, photographed by Anna Wu | Sutro Baths, San Francisco | Art for Art

Lessons Learned:

Because he knows Sutro Baths so well, Nima kind of led the way on this shoot, and I stepped out of my comfort zone a bit with full hair and makeup in front of the camera but also with shooting in spots and lighting that I might not normally shoot as much of. All in all, I love how the portraits turned out though. And I always love the surprise of seeing how the other photographer’s images look too!

Below are a few of Nima’s portraits of me! Hair and makeup were graciously done by my friend Christina of Makeup by Quis that morning.

Anna Wu photographed by Nima Salimi

Anna Wu photographed by Nima Salimi

Anna Wu photographed by Nima Salimi

Love.

Anna Wu is a San Francisco wedding photographer often jetsetting around the world. Follow her Art for Art series and professional work at annawu.com and on Facebook.