Nima Salimi| Art for Art | San Francisco Portrait Photography
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Part 1: Melanie Gabrielle | Snowy Winter in New York City
Part 2: Gabriel Gastelum| Art for Art | Los Angeles Portrait Photography
Part 3: Gabby Sutori | Art for Art | Barcelona, Spain
Part 4: Nima Salimi| Art for Art | San Francisco Portrait Photography
Part 5: Sherry Lu | Art for Art | San Francisco & Vancouver
Part 6: Rosa Guerra | Art for Art | San Francisco
Part 7: Fizzah Raza | Art for Art | San Francisco
Part 8: Jasmine Curtis | Art for Art | San Francisco
Part 9: Kevin Chin | Art for Art | San Francisco
Part 10: Matthias | Art for Art | San Francisco
Part 11: Sarah Dawson | Art for Art | Half Moon Bay
Part 12: Annie Vovan | Art for Art | Pacific Palisades