We believe in the power of a strong image language. And although uniting as much as five different photographers under one hashtag umbrella, the consortium #allupinitt manages to have just that. Their powerful photos deliver a beautifully coherent message, which is why we met up with the two founders, Johannes and Kane.
Hey guys, super pleased to have you in the magazine. It’s the first time we’re showing a portfolio of a group. Please give us a little history. Who’s involved and how did this particular group form? Why a group anyway?
J: Both of us Kane and me have been involved in the sneaker photography game for some years now. Since he recently moved to Cologne to work with me at Solebox, we have spent some time together and shot kicks on a daily basis. We are always observing inspiring
work of others, talk a lot about the sneaker scene and how companies are giving away photography jobs. So we thought about creating a consortium of highly talented, experienced experts in sneaker and street photography. The idea behind allupinitt is to evolve a unique language of pictures, joining forces and putting out the best quality content possible. I think as a consortium of people you have a lot more options, you can give your portfolio more variety and take advantages of the strengths every member of the group has to offer.
Hey guys, super pleased to have you in the magazine. It’s the first time we’re showing a portfolio of a group. Please give us a little history. Who’s involved and how did this particular group form? Why a group anyway?
J: Both of us Kane and me have been involved in the sneaker photography game for some years now. Since he recently moved to Cologne to work with me at Solebox, we have spent some time together and shot kicks on a daily basis. We are always observing inspiring
work of others, talk a lot about the sneaker scene and how companies are giving away photography jobs. So we thought about creating a consortium of highly talented, experienced experts in sneaker and street photography. The idea behind allupinitt is to evolve a unique language of pictures, joining forces and putting out the best quality content possible. I think as a consortium of people you have a lot more options, you can give your portfolio more variety and take advantages of the strengths every member of the group has to offer.
»We want to create a new style and think of images in new ways. «
Johannes
K: Johannes really helped me to step up my game job wise. I didn’t earn any money from photography until I met him and I realized that it is really hard to get things going when you are just by yourself. As a team like allupinitt it is way easier to make an impact because we can all benefit from the strengths of the others & help the others to conquer their weaknesses.
Why have you chosen the photographers you have chosen?
J: We wanted the top-notch killer dudes, of whom we think they are next level in terms of shooting and editing. Also, I think it is important that the style of all members is truly unique, but also works in the collective very well. Now with the setup of these five guys, I think we found a great foundation for the future of allupinitt.
K: It only takes a blink of an eye for me to realize by whom a certain picture is taken, if I am aware of their style. A lot of people just repeat already existing patterns and take pictures that are not any different from the ones you see a
minute later on your Instagram feed and that is exactly what we tried to avoid while choosing our team members.
You have different photographers under the #allupinitt umbrella, but the language in the pictures fits really well together. Who’s making the choices here and what are the challenges in curating?
J: The curation is done by Kane at the moment, but like you said, we try to evolve a picture language that flows very well and has that certain kind of style we are looking for. This way we try keep the quality level high and create the unique flavor we want #allupinitt to look like.
»For now it’s more about creating a stronger bond inside the team, than expanding it to a point, where its just another repost account. «
Kane
K: The hardest part of curating is to remind your team members to send you pictures.
Especially getting exclusive shots that you won’t find on our personal accounts is quite hard because we all have to keep our own projects running. The other big deal is the timing. I work quite a lot and on some days I just don’t find the time to post on allupinitt.
Is it difficult to work with different people in different locations?
J: In times of clouds, Dropbox and the Internet it is pretty easy to always stay connected and share work. So we keep contact all the time and exchange views and photographs.
K: Every now and then, when I realize that there isn’t much content left that works for a post, I just remind the others to drop me some pictures. Especially when they uploaded quite some nice pictures, which they didn’t add to the Dropbox, I will just tell them that I need these particular pictures to post.
Do you also try to meet up in person once in a while or are you a completely virtual group?
J: At the moment we are spread all over Europe and Liam is settled in Australia. We definitely try to meet up in person from time to time. Whenever there is a chance to catch up we will try to make it happen and go shoot together.
Is there a popular style of photo that would never make it to allupinit?
J: We want to create a new style and think of images in new ways. Therefore we try to always be ahead of so-called trends and phenomena in the sneaker photography world. But I wouldn’t say there is a specific popular style we would dismiss on the first hand.
K: I will hopefully never come up with the idea of posting a „sneaker in bed“ or „couple kissing with the same kicks on“ on our account. Bit I guess none of our team would ever take pictures like that
»As a consortium of people you have a lot more options and can take advantage of the strengths every member of the group has to offer. «
Johannes
I know this question can be lame but what’s the equipment you guys are using at the moment? What’s your system, Johannes and Kane and will you stick to it?
J: I have switched my system from a Canon 5D MK3 to the Sony A7RII very recently and I am still figuring out if it was the right move. So far I can say that I am fairly happy with it, the quality and possibilities are insane. If I have to shoot sports or important events I would still rather use a classic DSLR I guess, just to make sure to have a quick autofocus in low light situations, but the Sony will do most of my daily work better than any DSLR on the market. As far as other equipment is concerned, I love to use prime lenses like 24, 35 and 85mm on my sneaker shots. In addition to that, using a flash or LED lamp sometimes is necessary. But I definitely prefer working with natural, available light.
K: Just like Johannes I switched from Canon to a Sony A7RII. I used a Canon 6D before, but I was really unsatisfied with the quality of the delivered pictures. I am a fan of shoot dark & moody pictures but the ISO performance of the 6D just couldn’t deliver what I was aiming for. I will have to sell some shoes to eat some good food again, but for me it was already worth it. I am a big fan of symmetry and the display in the viewfinder that makes me choose different grids helps me a lot to keep my shots aligned like I want them to be. Especially for moody shots it’s also quite nice to see the actual picture in the viewfinder instead of just relying on the light meter. Features like filming through the viewfinder combined with focus peaking instead of only being able to use the screen is also a really nice feature for the folks that need to do videos every now and then
Currently there’s so much talk about mirrorless cameras. What’s the future?
J: The mirrorless system of the Sony A7RII is definitely a game changer. It has so many positive aspects compared to the classic DSLR. And now that they have solved the autofocus problem I had no choice but to get on board. It has all the features I need, being portable with its small and lightweight body, a full frame sensor and very important for shooting kicks: The WiFi function. I think this is the future of photography and the other brands need to step up their game real quick.
K: It took me a day until I got used to a mirrorless and I still mess up things with the A7RII but what would you still need a real viewfinder for nowadays? The mirror is just another mechanical part that gets worn of with time
Johannes and Kane, you both have personal accounts as well. Are there shots that are exclusive to #allupinitt and where do you draw the boundary between personal account and group account?
J: We try to keep the content on the feed exclusive, so it is a unique range of photos and not just a “best of” of our roster of shooters. For my personal work the new group account was also very important to get a channel for my sneaker and street related work, since it is not fitting into my personal account that good anymore. Still shooting kicks and urban stuff is a big part of my work as a photographer, so I’m very happy to be able to share that part of my portfolio with the allupinitt crew account.
K: Until some time ago I always posted a series of three pictures, but there are pictures that just don’t work as a series in example look ups or street shots. Through allupinitt I managed to keep a good looking feed without using the simple effect of posting 3 pictures in a row. But to answer your question, Johannes shoots mostly outdoor stuff and sometimes I join him and upload pictures of our trip on my personal IG, but I would never post one of these nature shots on allupinitt since we try to keep the account as street as we can.
Are you guys thinking about extending the group and inviting more people?
K: We had quite a few people contacting us already, but for now I would rather create a stronger bond inside the team, than expanding the team to a point, where its just another repost account.
J: Since we are at the very beginning of this formation, we want to keep it fixed for now. But we always have our eyes out there looking for new people to match our style and impress us with their work.
Do you also collaborate with brands?
J: That for sure is one of the main reasons why we started this whole thing! We want to function as a sort of production agency, delivering great quality content and also developing whole campaign strategies in terms of creative direction and photography. With our roster of great photographers who also have a nice following on social media, we can deliver not only quality content but also can use our channels to spread it to a decent number of followers.
Who are your favorite photographers outside of #allupinitt?
K: Street/Architecture wise I really like the works of @ryanmillier @jayscale @insighting & @ollienordh. Sneakerwise most of my favorite shooters are inside the team already but I also really like @brooro & @frozenbite.
J: As far as my personal favorites outside of our crew are concerned, I enjoy a lot of different stuff. I dig the work of Michael Salisbury (@msalisbu), Daniel Ernst (@daniel_ernst) and Graeme Owsianski (@grame_o). Sneaker wise my favorites right now are French (@elzapatillaztio), Roman (@brooro) and Patrick (@saintcity).
Thanks for the interview and keep up the amazing work!
K: Thanks again for the opportunity & shout out to the rest of the team: Filip, Claude & Liam!
J: Thanks so much for having us! It’s a great honor to present our work here with you guys. Big up, Sneakers Mag!
allupinitt is:
@liamparsons4 @filipgorski @knucklerkane @needlehorse @pangeaproductions