Human Stories Rendered in Light: Dmitriy Vavilov – Category Winner of the Year

I have been doing photography for over 15 years. My main focus is creative genre portraiture, when a person's inner world is conveyed through a portrait and the creation of surrounding details; reportage photography, when it is important to convey not just an event, but live shots, to show people's emotions; as well as nude photo sessions, revealing the beauty and aesthetics of the naked body.

I am a member of several photographers' associations and have received awards from international photo competitions. I was awarded a personalised certificate of the "Russian Prize in the Field of Arts" for my ability to convey a person's inner world using artistic photo shooting techniques.

In the process of experimenting in photography, I found my direction, and the work that was awarded is just one of a series of my works in this direction.

Wow! I am incredibly proud of the award I received, and for me, it is another kick to move on and continue to create such photo works.

The story of the creation of the work is very interesting. In the photo is my friend's wife, and a week after the shooting, she gave birth to a child. She is also holding her son in her arms. An idea appeared to shoot a photo work dedicated to the wonderful women who bear the burden of giving birth and raising our children, sometimes sacrificing their ambitions and dreams for the sake of the family.

A very difficult question. Everything is so subjective and depends on the specific competition. I think there should be several components: the plot, the quality of the picture, and you yourself should like the work. And then you need to look at the reaction of the audience and the jury at various competitions.

I have worked in an office all my life, and photography became a distraction from the routine. It became a pleasant hobby. I have been involved in photography since childhood, when we developed film ourselves at home and then took black and white photos at home.

Currently, I am trying to promote what I call "philosophical nude". I am trying to consider various issues of human relationships, the place of people and, in particular, women in society. I have two series of works in this genre. The work Motherhood (Eva project) is dedicated to the Woman, the one who gives new life and raises children.

There is also a second project - Boxes. In which I try to raise the issue of our life in an artificially limited environment, when we are afraid to go beyond the limits. The work "Violators" from this project won a gold award in 2021 at the New York Photography Awards.

Since I take pictures in a studio, to be honest, the camera and lens are not important to me. I don’t use any special functionality.

It is important for me that the work attracts the viewer's attention. Each person's specific feelings are very individual. The main thing is to attract and then make them think about the plot, consider the details, etc.

Such photos are taken from a high shooting point, and the first difficulty is to find a suitable studio with a high second-floor balcony. And the second is to constantly run up and down to adjust the composition, to correct the position of a specific participant. Look at the composition, go down, adjust the hand of one, move the other, go up, look, go down again, adjust something else, and so on constantly.

I am very inspired by the theme of nude – the beauty of the naked body. But I am trying to find new forms of photography to show this, for example, the photo that won this competition.

I am self-taught and, frankly speaking, far from the history and classics of photography. I shoot only what resonates in my soul. I think that my friends and acquaintances influence me by participating and supporting me in my large-scale shootings, thereby motivating me to create something new, bright, and interesting.

A difficult question. I won my first contest completely by accident, simply by checking the box "send to contest" on one of the photo resources, and the work took 1st place in a prestigious photo contest, and the prize was a camera from Sony.

Participation in contests allows you to see the strong works of the winners, analyse and improve your work. Don't be afraid of failures. This is experience, the main thing is to draw the right conclusions and make stronger work.

It's all pretty banal. First of all, learn classical lighting schemes and frame construction in practice, and then start experimenting and don't be afraid of criticism.

I would divide the creation of a photograph in my work into 3 equal parts: Subject (Idea), Quality (Light, noise, etc.) and Post-processing. With the help of post-processing, it is possible to add an atmosphere that is impossible to create in reality or, for example, remove unnecessary details from the frame, which are also impossible to eliminate initially.

Therefore, I consider this an important stage in the creation of a photograph.

AI is developing very quickly, but so far it hasn't affected my work. Although it is quite possible that after some time, the "Photographer-Model" link will disappear and only "Model-AI" will remain. Time will tell.

Since one of the directions of my photo sessions is genre portraits, I would be interested in photographing people in a non-standard setting for them. For example, photographing the Presidents of countries, showing their humanity through photography (hobbies, love, life experience not related to politics, etc.).

That's my dream.