Public Republic

An Interview of Violeta Petkova with Elena Stavreva

Elena Stavreva: “Oftentimes I end up running ‘miles’ after kids, which becomes my fitness exercise for the day!”

What do you think about photography like a different way of life?

I would say through photography you learn to see things around in a deeper way. Play of light and shadows, glimpses of emotions, composition of subjects around you become alive to your eye after you’ve been rather blind towards them before you touched the art of taking pictures.

I think you learn to appreciate special moments more as you hunt for them with your lens. Before the lens I used to overlook certain moments or take them for granted.

Do you consider yourself satisfied capturing a special moments like weddings?

Oh yes, weddings are the favourite part of my profession. Everything is real, is unique, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the participants. You cannot set those things up in a photo shoot outside the actual event. It gives you adrenaline as you strive to capture those seconds that would never repeat themselves in the history.

A wedding is a challenge for any photographer as he needs to respond to continuous change of light and settings. It is a great responsibility to document the content in high quality way. Further editing takes up to several weeks of detailed work over images.

I do feel satisfied after most of the weddings. However, those where participants are rather cold and are not interested in investing themselves into creating photographic memories for themselves rather frustrate me, my expectations are higher than theirs and I feel unfulfilled.

What do you think about this quote: “A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.” (Albert Einstein) What is your experience?

It does sound true to me that a photograph stops the time, and does not change.

However, there are no pictures involving people that would have only one single objective meaning, only one rigid truth. The meaning is created by a subjective perception of a viewer, which drastically changes overtime. Thus, as you look at a photograph of a father or a mother through the years, new features appear before you at the same image.

If we talk about images of unknown people, there you fantasy may play total opposites as you come back to them through the years. They will not be the same, I think.

What is an interaction effect between the photographer , the camera and the photo?

Well, a good camera is very prideful. If you don’t know how to handle its mechanisms, it will make your pictures and you look ridiculous and ungraceful. Camera doesn’t like hands that put her on an automatic regime.

Thus, in order to see on paper what you have in mind, you need to learn how camera thinks and responds. It is an intermediary that can bring your imagination into material existence and give you sense of fulfilment, or that can kill your imagination and any desire to create as well if you don’t succeed to make it work for you.

Tell us more about the process of photographing children. How do you steal real smiles from kids who don’t want to smile at that moment?

Hehe – ‘steal’ is a right way to put it! In most of the cases I set our interaction up as though we came together to play, to share our toys and have fun. I present my camera as one of my toys, I let them touch it; studio softboxes become panels for the puppet theatre behind them. Of course, parents are irreplaceable in the whole process. I often cease shooting just to let the child go for a hug to a parent.

Oftentimes I end up running ‘miles’ after kids, which becomes my fitness exercise for the day!

Make a wish to our readers.

I wish the readers to enjoy rich experiences in their lives and to not forget capturing them for precious memories!
I would also wish the readers going for professional photo sets for at least once in two years. Time flies by so fast, and it is not as pleasant to have only amateur images in the family archives as owning beautiful series of portraits done by a pro.

Photos: Elena Stavreva

There is one absurd notion that has been speculated with too much by worshippers of shallow vanity, and that is whether an individual is photogenic or not.

Photo and Genic. Who in the world married these two words?

If camera teaches one to learn to see without the camera, then it taught me in a strange way to see beauty in every chunk of life, literally. Or did my eyes teach my camera to do so?..

Baby smile, Mummy’s feather kiss, a teadrop, Daddy’s strong hands, hearts of newlyweds that beat louder than the music through the speakers during the guest reception… Happy, sad, hurting, crying, pondering – every human emotion is a masterpiece authored by the Creator. I love people. Whatever they are like and whatever they look like.

It is hard to love a nasty personality. But doable.

All those seconds of life become history, and I treasure what I do – I conquer time! I make those moments stay alive and forever just like they are. Why? Because tomorrow all is going to be different.

I think art is about people. And it should revive a weary soul, make it want to live a richer life, love herself and see beyond itself.

I don’t believe non photogenic people exist.

I am a photographer based in Sofia, Bulgaria. I am rich in my own memories as I lived and worked in half a dozen countries, in the East and in the West, being ethnically Russian. I do face identity crisis sometimes, but it all is worth it!

“There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition”
― Blaise Pascal
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