Inspiration in Action

I want to share my personal creative story with you so that maybe you can learn something from it too. And we all know, personal stories are always interesting. So here we go. Please let me know, what you think of this short solo episode. Should I do more? Dm me here or on Instagram!

Today I have a very special guest for you. Her name is Birgit Kleber and she’s a professional portrait photographer based in Berlin, Germany. During her long photography career, Birgit got a chance to work with many celebrities, including Monica Belucci, Rachel Weisz, Liam Neeson, Charlotte Rampling, Juliette Binoche, and many others. She also has a number of deeply psychological portrait series of women, exploring the changes that a female character can undergo in new circumstances. Birgit has a very interesting way of working with models, which she will be sharing with us in this interview along with other very useful tips, like working with photo agencies, printing your own work, what do you do, if your model doesn’t like your images. Please enjoy!

In today’s episode, I’m talking to Kristina Varaksina, a professional fashion and fine art photographer from Russia, currently based in NYC. Her work is an outstanding blend of surrealism, poetry, pastel color palettes and fashion aesthetics. Very few people can boast having such a combination in their works! Her work was recognized by numerous photography magazines and awards, including Aesthetica magazine, Vogue Italy, Int’l Photography awards, PX3, and others. She currently teaches photography at NY film academy and shoots for clients like Harpers Bazar and L’Oficiel.

In our conversation, we discuss the very intriguing topic of formal education in photography. what does it bring you? do you need it at all? Kristina also shares how her creative process is organized from the initial idea to the final result. She also tells us about her experience of working with big brand names. Priceless information for any aspiring and even established photographer. Enjoy!

In this episode, I’m talking to Patty Maher, an internationally recognized conceptual photographer from Canada. Patty’s unique style faceless portraits of women were featured on multiple immensely popular art portals and received several prestigious photography awards. Among them Tokyo International Foto Awards, Moscow International Foto Awards, Fine Art Photography Awards, and many many others. Patty’s work is represented by several galleries in different countries of the world. And she has accomplished all that not even being a full-time artist! In our conversation, Patty shares what helped her find her unique personal style, what you should do to get a gallery to represent you and if talent is important in a creative life. I hope you’ll enjoy this interview as much as I did! It has lots of wisdom and practical knowledge about being an artist in today’s world.

In this episode, I’m talking to Ronny Garcia, a conceptual portrait photographer from Chile. Ronny is known to over 100k people on Instagram for his fantasy-like portraits. He has a unique editing style that draws thousands of people to his art. However, it was completely different, when he just picked up his camera 6 years ago, trying to deal with a painful breakup. Listen to Ronny’s story to learn how art can help you heal, why paying attention to color is crucial in photography and how daily art projects can help you grow.

In this episode, I’m talking to Karen Cantuq, incredibly inspiration digital artist from Mexico. Karen now has a Instagram community of over 90k people, has partnered with brands like Starbucks and CocaCola, but what’s more important is that she has figured out how not to be a starving artist and pay for traveling all over the world. But this is not how it started though. Karen’s story started with deep personal trauma and depression, which art helped her to overcome. Maybe you can relate to this. But please hear her amazingly inspirational story from herself and I hope you enjoy the interview!

This episode includes my interview with Rob Woodcox, American conceptual photographer who is widely known all over the internet for his series of images of giant structures made of human bodies. Besides creating and financing his amazing artworks, Rob also works for clients like Universal, teaches conceptual photography worldwide and has held over 75 workshops all over the world.

In addition, Rob is passionate about helping those in need and organized photography-related projects to raise money for foster kids. There’s a lot to learn from him and this interview proves it. We discuss how his curiosity for shooting dancers turned into an impactful art project, Rob’s unique method of finding inspiration in music and how overcoming personal barriers helps you become a better artist. Enjoy!

In this episode, I’ll be talking to Helga Stenzel, a mixed media visual artist from London. She works across a wide range of media including illustration, photography, video, and animation. Helga started out as an Art Director in the advertising industry. There she learned the basics of branding, marketing, and strategic thinking. This set of skills is now helping her to create engaging content for some of the most popular accounts on social media. In our talk, Helga shares the challenges that she faced, when she just graduated from college, ups and downs of her own small business and the details of her creative process.

This episode features an interview with California-based fashion photographer Diane Villadsen. Diane's fashion shoots images the break all the stereotypes of fashion photography. Focused on pastel colors and creating her own location sets, Diane the has a thriving Instagram community of over 47 followers and a popular YouTube channel, where she shares all her knowledge and experience in shooting unusual fashion with more than 15k subscribers. We talk about how to get your first clients as a photographer, when should you make a transition to being a full-time creative, should you do free work and why your works should have a meaning behind them. I really hope you enjoy it!

In this episode, I’ll be talking to Anna Devis and Daniel Rueda an amazing and hugely Instagram famous couple. You can find them on Instagram as @anniset and @druerda. Anna and Daniel shoot “creativity-driven minimalistic architectural self-portraits” as they call their works and blow minds of thousands of people by the simplicity, originality, and positivity of their photos.

In this interview, we talk about how perfectionism gets you nowhere, where you should search for your personal style, what to do when you don’t have ideas for your art. Anna and Daniel share how they get ready for each shoot and what they learned from working with clients like Netflix and Facebook. I promise you’ll get lots of valuable insights from this talk!