Lovisa (nickname is Kiki by friends and families, please note some exhibitions and awards are in the name Kiki) started her career in photography with a year of art studies in Stockholm, Sweden, where she is from. After a year of basic art studies, she studied photography for 2 years at the photography school Kulturama in Sweden. After a holiday in Sydney, she fell in love with Australia and decided to continue and expand her photography education by applying for a bachelor fine arts at COFA/UNSW, majoring in photomedia. After her graduation from COFA, she started working in a photography lab, as film was still used by most photographers back then. She did darkroom printing, processing and negative scanning. It was a great way of learning about colour, and learning to work in the fast paced world of fashion and advertising photography, meeting deadlines and dealing with Australia's top photographers. As using film started to be replaced by digital photography, the lab had to close down and she started her training at Pioneer studios (now SUN studios) as a digital operator and retoucher. Pioneer studios eventually merged with a photography equipment company called Baltronics, to what is now called SUN studios in Alexandria, Sydney. Lovisa worked there for two years as a retoucher and printer for 2 years, learning from some of the best retouchers in the country. As she built up her skills and experience within the industry, she eventually quit her job at SUN studios and started to freelance as a retoucher. Her clients were some of the top photographers in Australia in the fashion and advertising industry, and she did work for magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire (and many others who unfortunately are not in business today with the emergence of social media and online publishing.) Advertising clients included Seafolly campaigns, jewellery campaigns and and campaigns for some of Australia's top designers. During this time she gained extensive knowledge about the photography industry, things you could never learn at a university. She was still doing her own photography, using the time working for other photographers to develop her own "style" and which direction she wanted to take her own photography. Living in Sydney she took on small photography jobs in fashion and portraiture but her love for nature and landscape eventually took over. From her years in art school she always had a deep love for William Turners work, and they way he painted light and colour.
In 2015 she had her first solo exhibition with Head On Awards called "Lay of the land", landscapes inspired by William Turners paintings. An interview she did after the exhibition: https://www.qthotels.com/sydney-cbd/qt-blog/kiki-sjoberg-head-on-photo-festival/
Some info about the exhibtion: https://headon.org.au/search/?hos=kiki+sjoberg#searchOptionIn 2018
In 2018 she and her family made the decision to leave Sydney and move to the snowy mountains, NSW, to be closer to her biggest inspiration for her landscape photography and her love for rural Australia. In the summer of 2019- 2020 the region experienced devastating bushfires, which she documented around the snowy mountains area. One of the images reached the semi finals in Head On Awards, and two of her images was featured in the digital exhibion in collaboration with the Walkleys foundation, called "the summer Australia burned".Link to exhibition and images:
https://www.walkleys.com/bushfire-digital-photo-exhibition/
Moshe, the director and founder of Head On awards loved her images so much he nominated Lovisa out of all the photographers for the prestigious international awards Prix de pictet, It was such a great honour to be in the company of some of the worlds best photographers. The theme for that year was "Fire", hence the nomination for her images from the fires around snowy mountains. In 2021 she was a seminfinalist again with Head On and her image was displayed during the festival in a digital exhibition for semi finalists. In 2021 one of her images was also in the final of the newly started Galah magazine photo awards, and it was also displayed at their exhibition in Paddington, sydney, at the Halls Lane Gallery gallery in paddington. As she slowly stopped taking on retouching clients, she is now focusing on her photography carer. Her biggest inspiration is still the snowy mountains area but she also travels extensively to the northern rivers area in NSW,, and the south coast of NSW . Her love for the ocean is as big as my love for the mountains, and also a huge inspiration. You will also see her extensive portfolio of flower photography which is one of her biggest passions, and always an ongoing project.
Capturing mood, light and the senses her subjects evoke, her photographs are dreamy captures which hopefully evokes different emotions and sensations for the viewer.
https://www.qthotels.com/sydney-cbd/qt-blog/kiki-sjoberg-head-on-photo-festival/
https://www.walkleys.com/bushfire-digital-photo-exhibition/
https://headon.org.au/search/?hos=kiki+sjoberg#searchOption