FM42: How long have you been photographing?
I have been with a camera since childhood. True, I started with a video, not a photo. My grandfather had an 8mm movie camera, we shot and edited home movies together.
With the advent of smartphones, my love for photography and video shooting has reached a new level. Now the camera is always with me and, what is very important in my work, it is small, light and not afraid of water.
FM42: What inspires you? What is the meaning of the word photography for you?
I don’t have to look for inspiration. I see and perceive reality as a plot for a video or photo frame. It looks like fanaticism, I constantly regard everything around as a frame, but it seems to me that all people who are in love with their work are like that. It’s not just a hobby, it will never go away.
FM42: What is your favorite photo project?
I cannot single out one or more of my favorite projects. In each of the photo shoots, something happened for which I am grateful to fate. Nature actively helps me in filming. Every time a small miracle happens – a necessary natural phenomenon appears, a person, an animal or an object, which makes my shots so interesting. I practically do not write scripts for photography, completely relying on chance, I am always lucky with this.
Each of my photo projects is a visualization of an unwritten essay or fairy tale. All photographs tell the viewer a story that he can translate from visual images into words if he wishes. That is why I do not like to shoot corporate or private events – there the story is already predetermined, not by me. I should be able to create my own.
FM42: Any advice for creative people who want to become participants at Open Call First Date?
My advice is to look at the topic more broadly. The first date is not necessarily about two people who have agreed to meet and go to a restaurant or cinema. The heroes of your frame can be people for whom everything did not go as smoothly as they wanted. Or it could be a meeting of a person with the dream of his whole life. Or you can even abstract and make the center of the composition not people, but objects. Do not limit yourself in anything, write your own stories, without thinking about how the audience will understand them. By the way, viewers always interpret everything they see in their own way and not always the way the author intended.
To apply and for more information regarding the Open Call “First Date” click here.
