My interview

My digital photography blog has been receiving allot of attention lately, and with a bit of fame comes allot of questions. In this post, I tried to put together all the questions I’ve been asked by my readers, followers and photography lovers. Thanks for the support, and if you have some more questions feel free post them in the comment field at the end of this page. I’ll try to answer them in a timely manner.

-Where are you from?

I was born and raised in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. I’ve seen communism and two civil wars; I’ve been a witness to genocide against Georgian people during Abkhazian war in 1992 and Russian aggression in the summer of 2008. Currently I live and work in Italy, Milano.

-Where did u study photography?

I don’t have academic background in photography. Like many forms of art, photography is something you have there already in your blood. You can study composition of the landscape, how to build lightning for the portrait, but there is still something that defines a good photographer, good eye and that alarming feeling that something is going to happen… nicknamed: “decisive moment”.

-What is the inspiration behind your photographs?

Inspiration is hard to describe, or put it in words. It’s certainly a complicated mind process related to many strings; childhood experience, memories and a character… Generally I drain inspiration from people, I like faces, body parts, strange noses, deep eyes, behavior in the street, social situations… To put it in simpler words, my inspiration is a social behavior of a human.

-What motivated/urged you to follow into photography?

Well, it started long ago, and exact moment is fading out in my memory…I think it all started when I was a kid; with fascination of human behavior, I could spend hours and hours by the window watching people pass by, taking mental photos of faces, hands, cloth, touches etc. So photography correlates with my character, I’m an observer…

-What is the greatest challenge that you encountered in photography (when you first began)?

Greatest challenge is to move your thoughts from the head on to the paper… it’s the limitation of medium, for example in cinematography it’s easier to transfer thoughts, there is more time and more freedom – in photography I just have a fraction of the second to tell the whole story.

-What kind of equipment do you use, why?

Photographer takes the pictures not the camera, I think it doesn’t matter what equipment you use. What matters is the final result, and how it relates to the viewer. At the moment I use canon gear, I think it provides most whistles for the money.
Detailed list of digital photography gear with reviews / opinions can be seen here: Digital photography gear

-What kind of photo editing software do you use?

I use adobe Photoshop CS4 for heavy image manipulation, and Lightroom 2.3 for easier tasks.

-What makes a good photographer in your opinion?

Balls to stick your face everywhere, and stick your camera to everybody else’s face… (Let me try to rewrite this in a civil way) – Courage, yes…!

-In your opinion, what makes photography an art?

Not all kind of photography is art, for example street photography is documentary. Photographing beautiful landscapes, sunsets isn’t art. But conceptual photography, where u come up with every single detail from the composition to the consistency of the scene… when u place characters subjects in the scene to tell some particular story, then photography becomes art…

-What motivates u to do what you do?

Feedback from the people who like my photos is the greatest charger!

-Why is Photography important to you?

It’s a tool of self expression, I can tell viewer of my images, what I feel, how I’m at the moment, what interests me… for me it’s the way of communication.

Waiting for more questions!

That’s it for now, if you have any more questions, write in the comments field, and I’ll try to answer them in a promptly manner!

Filed Under: Personal journal

Tags: art, artist, interview, my life, photographer, photography, sandro