RACINE — The photo studio at 1352 Washington Ave. is unlike any other you’ve seen. Guaranteed.
Photographer Evie Kalmar has just opened Unplugged Studios at that Uptown address, a variation of the studio she previously had at 408 Main St. in Downtown. Kalmar specializes in avant-garde photography, as her new studio makes abundantly clear, but also does standard portraiture there.
In addition to photography, Kalmar is also an “alternative” freelance model and part-time social worker at Safe Haven of Racine, a youth shelter.
Unplugged Studios, she said, is a photography studio and collaborative artist space.
“It’s really just a place where artists can get together and do what they’re passionate about,” Kalmar said.
As a photographer, she said, “where my passion lies is with avant-garde photography, anything artistic and outside of the box. A lot of people love that.”
For photographing people in her new space, Kalmar has set up many different choices of 8-foot-square backdrops along the first floor’s sidewalls.
“Mostly this side is for headshots, portraits, things like that,” she said about the right, or east, wall. “Stereotypical backgrounds.”
Well, not completely stereotypical; a real casket with a broken mannequin lying in it was parked along that wall on Wednesday.
“Obviously, the casket is not there when we’re doing those (kinds of photo shoots),” Kalmar said with a laugh.
“But this side,” she said about the left, or west, sidewall, “is more crazy. Like the bathtub, the cloud, the piano. This is an LED wall; it lights up. The steam punk wall. This is a black light wall; it actually glows under black light. And then the phones.
“This is what I would love to do all the time,” she said about using the “crazy” wall. This (the saner wall) is what is in demand.”
“This (studio) just blows me away,” said Wes Fallon, a photographer and graphic artist.
The front of the first floor is gallery space for various artists.
More options
In her new Uptown studio, Kalmar said, “There are so many services that I can offer here that I was not able to offer (in her Downtown spot). I can run classes here; I can do workshops here.”
Unplugged is now also a co-working artistic space involving $200 monthly memberships. Kalmar currently has four members, one of them being Fallon. His business is Ascender Graphics.
“(Unplugged Studios) has expanded what I can do with photography,” he said.
For more information about Unplugged Studios, call 262-412-6877 or visit Unplugged Artistic Event Planning and Studios on Facebook.
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