AT HOME WITH... Adam Popovic
Photographer Adam Popovic discovered his talent for art photography during lockdown, when his wedding photography work dried up. With his children’s imaginations as inspiration, he created lighthearted scenes using lollies and toys to tell off-the-wall stories that delight the viewer. He lives in Mt Albert, Auckland, with his wife Julia, and their children Sam, 11 and Olivia, 7, in a home they moved into only a few months ago.
ADAM:
We’ve only recently moved into our new home, and we love it, but we had just the worst moving experience.
We had the movers booked a month out, but the day before they texted me saying, “Oh, we can't come at 8am. Can we come later in the afternoon?” I say no, because we had plans. There’s some back and forth, then at 7pm, they message saying, “No, we can't do it. We're doing another job”.
We put out an urgent SOS on Facebook, found some other movers, but at 3.30pm they messaged to say they couldn’t come at all. I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’ Luckily, we had a Plan C, so we finally got moved into the house at about 8pm when we were supposed to be there at 10 in the morning. Of course, I had a wedding the next day, so my stress levels for that three-day period were a bit much.
I was one of those people that never knew what I wanted to do. I’m always envious of people that know at the age of 10 that they want to be a marine biologist or something like that. I just left university, went across to Australia, and fell into
hospitality. Then one day, because I used to take photos of the family, my cousin asked me if I would photograph her wedding. That’s how I fell into it.
I love the chaos of a wedding. It never goes to plan. You’ve just got to let it go and capture it as it happens. I like natural, candid wedding images. To me, the most important thing is the love and the laughter – if you’re not capturing that, it doesn’t feel real.
I’m always happy to be a goofball to get a reaction from the bridal party – you want to capture the personality. Magic just happens, but you’ve got to have a good eye for composition and lighting.
My creative photography was a positive during Covid. It’s an absolute joy and I constantly meet people who say they have my work.
One of my most popular images is the map of New Zealand in sweets. I kind of knew that one would be popular. That’s the second version of that image. Usually I do a run of 75 and then that’s it.
The Lego skull is a creative shot I did for myself. Having children, I fell back in love with Lego. And obviously, I'm a child of the 70s so I love Star Wars. So putting those two together seemed like the perfect match.
People often tell me they buy my stuff for the titles as much as the image – that one’s titled Everyone Needs a Hobby.
The chess set is important to us. We took a family trip to Europe when I was about eight. My dad got that chess set in the markets in Venice, which is a pretty cool place to be. He was living in Australia when he passed away. It's one of the few things of his that I brought back with me. Now my son is playing chess, so it was only right that we break it out.
Another thing I brought back with me was that little diary journal Dad had when he was 13 or 14-years-old when he visited Croatia, which is where we’re from. It’s fascinating to read your parents’ take on life at that age. It’s almost like what my son would write now.
The wonderful thing about my little Fuji X-T3 camera is it’s just so small and light. Before, I used big DSLR cameras. You’d do a nine or 10-hour wedding with a couple of those strapped to your shoulders and the next day you’d just be wrecked. So having a smaller camera is recommended.