There is something paradoxical about photographing a photographer. They know every move you make before you make it. They read light the way most people read faces. And when you point a camera at them, you can be sure they are doing the same thing in their head, right back at you.
Katja Grobelnik is exactly that kind of subject. Based in Slovenia and shooting weddings worldwide, Katja has built her practice with a distinctly editorial edge. She has shot in Milan, in Cameroon, Greece and across her homeland.
“We shot in an abandoned quarry, the kind of place that feels like it belongs to no particular era. Rough stone walls, industrial silence, and at the bottom of it all, an emerald lake so still and clear you could see the tadpoles moving just below the surface. It was an odd, quietly alive location, and it suited her perfectly”, photographer Aleš Bravničar explained.
“What makes shooting Katja interesting is precisely what makes her good at her own work: she is visually literate and physically at ease in front of a camera. She does not perform discomfort. She does not over-pose. There is a settledness to how she inhabits a frame, which means the job as the photographer on the other side is to find the moment where that settledness cracks open into something more alive. The quarry helped. There is something about a place that still has a pulse, even a slow, amphibian one, that keeps a subject present. When a photographer relaxes in front of another photographer, it is rarely because you asked them to.”
Katja runs her business and has a growing wedding portfolio alongside her portrait and commercial work. Her Instagram account gives a clear sense of her aesthetic: warm but precise, intimate without being soft. She studied political science at the University of Ljubljana, which might explain the thoughtful, structured quality her images carry even when the subject matter is loose and playful.
In other words, one could say: photographing someone who photographs for a living is a test — and we honestly couldn’t be happier with the result. And we are sure you are too.
Photographer: @bravnicar
Model: @katjagrobelnikk
