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Conrad Golovac
@conradgolovac
Visual creator based in the US
My parents always thought it was best that my sister and I be exposed to as many different cultures starting at a young age, so I have been lucky enough to travel already since I was a kid. As I grew older, I’ve made sure to travel as much as my schedule would permit me. It’s hard to say what or when my passion for photography was born and set into motion. I’ve always been taking pictures. To be honest, I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t shooting! Ever since I was quite young I had a camera with me, either a point and shoot, digital, or polaroid. My mother actually taught me to shoot on film when I was around 10 or 11 on her Nikon SLR. She would have me take notes of each shot I took so I could learn the ins-and-outs of manual photography. I’d walk around the backyard with this big camera and a notebook, jotting down the f-stop and shutter speed of each picture. From then on, photography became more and more a part of my life. Aside from taking photographs, I’ve always found camera’s themselves to be so interesting as a piece of machinery; I’ve gone on to collect all different types from 35mm to medium format to digital as well as sets of specific lenses.
"I just find the tools behind the art so fascinating."
"Although photography had become an integral part of my life, it was in 2012 that I kind of changed my approach towards the combination of travel and photography."
I had been studying and working in London and I had a week off. I decided that instead of heading down to the Mediterranean to hang out on beaches, I would travel up and down Norway by train alone with my camera. It was the first time that I had decided to just go to a country I had never been to before solely for the purpose of taking pictures. Aside from being absolutely blown away by the Norwegian countryside, I found so much pleasure in going somewhere with the objective to explore and document it. From there, it really took off and my photography developed in a different direction.
"Over the past few years I achieved things I would have never imagined before."
I won different awards, did several expeditions and my work has appeared in different magazines; it’s been a true honor and privilege to have my work shown around the world and make its way into several magazines and books. What I’m most proud of is just getting to see my work in a public space. As a photographer, there is nothing more gratifying than seeing the photograph actually be printed. To see a photo on a wall is kind of the last part of the evolution of a photo. You shoot the frame, you process it, and then finally you print it and the photograph comes to its final form.
"Nevertheless, I think we should remember to be proud of every small step that we accomplish."
It is hard work to get to your goals. I would say the most important step of getting to where I am today was to keep going out and shooting. When it comes to photography, practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes your craft. Over time and with repetition, you eventually find your individual voice and style in photography. There really isn’t a magic answer for how you will get to where you want to go, life doesn’t work like that and everyone will have a different path to a different goal, your own goal. But the common theme is that you just keep practicing and mastering your skill.
"Take 10,000 photographs, and then take 10,000 more and you’ll see over time a theme, a style or an edit choice that really makes your work your own."
Working also as a cinematographer, it’s the same thing. You shoot and shoot and shoot and learn and learn and learn. It’s all a process of learning and getting better with each and every project. You will always learn from what you are doing, that process will never stop. Failure is part of that too, and it’s about being ok with it. It’s all part of the process of getting better at something. There are countless competitions and awards that I’ve failed to win or be selected for, and that’s all fine with me.
"There will be others, some I may be selected for and some that I won’t, but as long as I enjoy the work that I do and keep honing in on my skills, it’s all worth it."
"One of my favorite brand campaigns I shot was for San Pellegrino around mentorship."
I shot a series of interviews and a dish preparation with young rising star chef’s that had been nominated for a James Beard Award (one of the highest honors in the American culinary world) with their mentors. What made that special for me was seeing the power of mentorship firsthand. These young chef’s were nominated for something so few ever have the chance to win, yet they were so humble and grateful of the mentors that helped lead them there. Along with that, the mentors themselves were just as humble despite having these incredibly prestigious careers and it was amazing to see how much the young chef’s had influenced and, in a way, mentored them as well.
Another campaign I truly enjoyed was a series I recently shot for Barbie centered around female athletes that competed or were set to compete at the Olympics. The main theme of the series was focused around being anything you want and I think with the rise in women’s equality in sport. This is an incredibly important topic to discuss and share with young people who look up to these athletes as role models.
It’s a great feeling to work on meaningful projects and to help spread a message. The difficult thing, however, about working in the branded documentary field is that there are a bit of conflicting ideas and perspectives behind each project. The brand wants to make sure that their product is represented well and the subject needs to have their story told authentically, and sometimes these can conflict. My job is to balance those two and shoot it in a cinematic and honest way that gives credence to both. It’s a challenge, but one that I love.
"Each job asking and demanding something new of me with its own set of challenges that have to be overcome."
When it comes to my career, I have come to the understanding that my work will always be changing and growing, much as I do. As my perspective about the world changes, so does my approach to photography and cinematography. The way you see a place and how you interpret that with a camera changes. I think the experiences that have helped me grow the most as a person would have to be the ones that while traveling I’ve just opened myself up to. Be it getting lost and interacting with strangers in the medina of Fes, or camping on mountaintops in the Lofoten Islands, it’s these kinds of experiences that have made me love travel the most and have helped me develop and grow as a person.
"A trip that I feel I learned a lot from was one of my recent trips to Iceland."
I had given myself 12 days to do a full circumnavigation of the island, going southeast out of Reykjavik along the coast, up the eastfjords, across the north, and out and around the Snaæfellsness Peninsula. I had each stop planned out with contingencies for weather in place to get the shots that I wanted. I landed early in the morning after flying in from New York and hopped right into my rental car and headed down for the coast. I spent the day reshooting some locations that I had gotten on my previous trip all while making my way for the southeast corner of the island; to the town of Hofn. After 14 hours of driving and shooting it had started to get dark and knew that I would need to get to the campsite in Hofn soon so I could rest up for an early sunrise the next day.
"30 minutes away from Hofn, I found a line of cars and a police officer saying that there had been a landslide and the only bridge into town would be out of commission for the next few days."
The only way to get to Hofn and the eastfjords now was to go all the way around the island in the opposite direction. It was only the first day of the trip and already all my plans flew out the window! I sat there for a moment just thinking of how tired I already was with the jetlag and having spent the whole day hiking, shooting and driving. But after five minutes I knew what I had to do: turn around and do it in reverse – no other way around it. The experience was incredible for an entirely new reason: instead of thinking I could plan this all out, I had to just wing it, read the weather reports each day, check the roads diligently, and plan it all on the fly.
"It just showed that no matter what I thought I could plan, it all can change in a minute and I’ve learned to just roll with the punches so much more when I plan a trip."
In the end, it’s your attitude or thought that makes or breaks your trip because whether it’s what you planned or not, you will be rewarded with beautiful moments to capture and memories that will always stay with you. I guess many of the best things you’ve experienced weren’t even planned and life just surprises you. Actually, one of the more impressive and impactful moments I’ve had happened while being on an airplane.
"I had just finished climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and was returning back to the United States on an early morning flight out of Arusha, Tanzania to Nairobi, Kenya."
The flight was quite empty and small, just a twin-prop airplane with about 20 passengers on it and wouldn’t be flying at a very high altitude since it was such a short flight. It was pitch black out and you couldn’t see anything out the window besides the blinking light on the wingtips. About 20 minutes into the flight, the warm deep orange hues of sunrise started to come up over the horizon but a large chunk of the horizon was cut out. That’s when I saw that we were actually flying alongside the massive mountain. The rising sun was positioned perfectly behind the mountain so there was a huge silhouette on the horizon. Having stood on the summit just days before and then seeing it from this angle really put the entire experience of climbing it into perspective.
"While the flight or drive back home can be sad sometimes as the trip is over, this was the best unexpected ‘end of the trip’ moment I have had so far."
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