Interview with Novembers's photo competition winner

[Peter_S.]

Good morning, Arseniy! Congratulations on taking first prize in the company’s monthly European photo competition, “Rain”.
Hello! Many thanks for the congratulations. I still can’t believe it.

Tell us a little about yourself. Where do you live and what do you do?
I’ve lived in St. Petersburg for more than ten years now. I first came here to study. Now I’m simply living here.

I have two main occupations: The first is photography and the other is KVN, or the Club of Funny and Inventive People, (KVN is something like stand-up combined with comedy theatre and improvisation). I used to play for teams, but for a long time now, I have been organising games and training teams at my university (Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University).

When did photography come into your life? What does it mean to you and what place does it occupy in your life?
In February 2006, during my first year of university, when creativity was lacking in my life, I took a camera (at that time it was a Sony DSC-VI) and began to photograph everything in my room, one thing after another, trying to come up with an interesting still life. I had taken pictures previously, basically just of the city and of friends, as people do now with smartphones, but for the first time, in February 2006, I was actually pleased with the result. It was just vitamin C pills (little yellow balls) scattered on a white table, backlit by table lamp and taken with the “negative” setting of the camera. My family and friends have supported me from the very beginning, and since then, I have been doing photography.

Photography is really the best thing that has happened to me in my life. That’s why I like taking pictures. And I plan to continue because I can’t imagine my life any other way.

I haven’t done almost any photography for more than a year because I’ve been going through my photographs of the last ten years and reworking them so that they look now how I want them to. Basically, I shoot friends and only rarely do I take orders, really only wedding photos.

What were you doing when you got the news that you had won the competition and how did you feel?
I visited the competition web site almost every day to find out the results. I had been successful in the previous competition, “Bridges”, and I never thought that I could actually win one. But I still hoped, especially as visitors to the site liked my photographs, judging from the likes. And when I checked the site again and saw my photo on the front cover of the news, I was pleasantly surprised and for some time, I didn’t look because I was really afraid of frightening away my good luck. And I was also afraid of finding exactly what place I’d come in.

When I read the news, I immediately started contacting my friends and phoning my family to tell them the good news. And afterwards, when I had calmed down, I sat down and reworked some more of my old photographs.

Tell us something about your winning shot. What inspired you? Was this an accidentally “inspired” picture or part of some thematic series?
This picture was taken in a local photographic competition in St Petersburg. I’m not sure, but the theme was something like “the mood of the city”. My friends and I decided together to take this picture as St Petersburg and rain are inseparable. I had imagined the shot earlier in my head, but there was no opportunity to take it.

I phoned the students who I was teaching at KVN so they would bring umbrellas, and one of the girls who most fitted the image of the main heroine asked if she could bring all of the clothes required and prepare herself to get wet. I should really say that the whole thing was shot in early April, and that year – which is normal for St Petersburg – there was still snow on the ground and the temperature was around 0°C. So, at the right time, everyone gathered on the west porch of the university and positioned themselves in the right order with umbrellas. The girl took her place, I climbed the fence, one of my friends poured water over the girl and I began taking pictures. The weather forecast wasn’t lying and at the time of the photo shoot the rain that had been falling since the morning still hadn’t stopped. It was all done in one take and literally in a minute as everyone was afraid that the model would freeze to death. But she selflessly posed and even smiled, as was needed. I am hugely grateful to her and to everyone who helped in creating this photograph.

What equipment did you use in taking this shot, what creative methods and equipment, if any, did you use? How did you process it?
By 2011, I was taking pictures quite seriously, so my camera was already full format. Unfortunately, at the time I still didn’t have a lens suitable for the shot, so I had to use a small wide-angle lens. It created dark edges in the photograph, but it did produce the necessary effect. The effect meant that I could raise the eye level. I climbed the porch fence in order to be a metre and a half higher than the others. Then, thanks to the wide angle, I made them even further apart from each other. And for a better result, I set up the camera on a tripod and set up a time exposure so that the camera would take the picture by itself, and then I raised the tripod even further, right over the model.

I processed the photograph in Photoshop. I had to play with the colour for a long time in order to find the perfect contrast level and to make the whole image a little more magical.

And finally, what would you want the members of our company and the participants in the company’s photo competitions to do?
Carry your camera with you all at times. I made the mistake once of taking a big camera when I went out for a walk. And at a certain point I came to realise that it was very hard carrying all those kilograms around in a bag. And so I began to photograph less frequently. Now, having put this bulky equipment to one side, I have again begun shooting more often.

And keep on entering competitions regardless of the result. This is not the first year that I’ve sent photographs to the company, and I won earlier when they were giving out subscriptions and books, but with such valuable prizes, I won a second time and I was really waiting for that. The main thing is: Don’t give up. Sometimes the subject will be the theme you like the most, and even your favourite picture. And it will win!