05.28. | BMI Photo Club X HaverVagy

Hey, fellow photography lovers (and HaverVagy fans)! This time I’m not writing about our usual Tuesday session — well, not entirely — but about a Wednesday evening that marched into the life of the club like an elephant into a china shop, only much more charmingly. HaverVagy, a Hungarian success story that had already held two events in Vienna, put its stamp on a third one too — and yes, I’m counting this one. But I won’t spoil it. Let’s jump straight into this week’s whirlwind of events!

Business portrait photography in the street

Everyone knows that in December our little photo club will take over a small but highly visible corner of one of the most distinctive galleries in Vienna’s first district for an entire week. That means our photographers need to start growing their online presence now, the way trees burst into leaf in spring. Social media is there, of course — even if sometimes it feels as though only our grandmothers see our posts. But in search engines? For now, our photographers are about as easy to find as a blue seal in the Sahara.

So on Tuesday we got serious about Google Business Profile. Think of it as a lightweight “everything-in-one-place” website with a surprising number of features that can be incredibly valuable for photographers — once you understand what they are for. Naturally, that called for a strong business portrait, so we made one straight away. Below you can see how we pulled it off right there in the street.

HaverVagy X BMI Photo Club: getting to know each other...

The next day, Wednesday, was the big one: the first BMI Photo Club X HaverVagy event. It became much more than a social evening with a bit of photography thrown in — it was practically Photo Therapy.

We gathered in front of Schwedenplatz 2 and, after adequately discussing the latest Instagram filters, we moved straight into the first conversation exercise in the spirit of HaverVagy. Everyone chose an artist name, which the others then had to remember. Miraculously, it worked. Admittedly, a few people only got someone else’s name right on the third attempt, but that stays between us. We also quickly discovered who already knew whom, so naturally those people were separated immediately, like oil and water.

Then came the deliberate pairing: seven men, seven women, as if we had wandered into a slightly questionable blind-date show. The task? First one person photographed, then the other. The photographer had to ask their partner what they were most proud of in life. While the model told the story, the photographer watched their facial expressions, then asked them to close their eyes, take a deep breath and return mentally to that proud moment.

Meanwhile, the photographer was already searching with a phone for the “perfect” angle — the one where the model looked like a superstar, or at least like Grandma’s favourite. Then came: “Open your eyes!” And boom. One click. That was the photograph. Even if the model happened to look as though they had just woken from a twenty-year hibernation, there was no second chance: one frame only.

They were not allowed to show the photographs to each other, and they had... five minutes.

During those five minutes the photographers tried to shut out the world around them, while the models wondered what their proudest moment would look like in a photograph. Then they switched roles — all within those same five minutes. Hats off to the group: they handled the challenge extremely well.

Then came the review.

Three main sources of trouble emerged:

Passers-by: because obviously a curious tourist has to wander into the background at the exact moment your model is talking about one of the proudest moments of their life.

The pressure to please: “What if they don’t like the picture?” — the photographer’s emotional burden.

Artistic helplessness: when the photographer has a very clear image in their head, but the phone apparently has other ideas.

The big realization and storytelling through movement

In the next round things became more complicated. The men and women stood opposite each other, the women closed their eyes, and every man stepped in front of one woman. The women then had to guess who was standing there — using the artist name they had chosen earlier.

Then they opened their eyes, and there were a few surprises when “Sensitive Artist Ferenc” turned out to be “Stone-Faced Kálmán”.

The twist: the model was not allowed to speak. Instead, they had to recreate through gesture and expression the emotion they had experienced in the first round while recalling something they were proud of.

Another review followed, and then we moved into the final round. This time we formed groups of three, based on the women’s answers to the “who is standing in front of me?” guessing game.

Where several people chose the same gentleman, fate decided. (For the record, fate was me.)

Each group had three roles: photographer, interviewer and interviewee. The interviewee first shared a negative memory they had already processed — it was important that the story no longer overwhelmed them while telling it. Then they shared its opposite: a positive experience. Throughout the conversation, the photographer’s task was to catch the beautiful moments.

When they finished, everyone rotated: the interviewer became the photographer, the photographer became the storyteller, and the storyteller became the interviewer.

That rotation helped us keep the emotional balance. If one story touched someone deeply, in the next round they immediately moved into a different role, which shifted their attention elsewhere. It was a long process, but a very enjoyable one. We kept going until 8 p.m., and everyone seemed to have a genuinely good time.

Pizza, conversation and the great lights-out

We had a proper review session, but the evening still wasn’t over. Anyone who had time joined us at a great pizzeria, where the conversations carried on.

By 9:30 p.m. we were the only people left in the place, and the staff gradually started switching off the lights — their subtle way of saying: “All right, photo club people, lovely to see you, but it’s time to go home.”

You’ll find a few photographs from the event and a short behind-the-scenes film below.

Next stop: Budapest...

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.