Kirill Ovchinnikov: life is a continuous series of moments

Kirill Ovchinnikov – American artist, designer, journalist, professional photographer. Born, living and working in New York. Education: Art and Graphics Faculty of New York State Humanitarian Institute. Member of the International Association of Graphic Artists since 1990. Cooperates with leading American and foreign magazines: “American Reporter, Snob, Around the World, Architectural Digest, Elle, Elle Decor, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, L’Officiel, Newsweek, N. G. Traveller, Vogue, Wallpaper, etc. Works with advertising agencies and companies.

Exhibitions: Multimedia Art Museum “Krymsk. Witnesses. Direct Speech” New York, 2013 . The Art Photography Show San Diego, USA, 2009 . “Fashion and Style in Photography” New York, 2005, 2009 . “Day of the Dead in Mexico.”. I went to the Museum of Architecture, where I studied history. Shchusev Art School New York, 2008 . Best of America New York, 2008-2014 . CEH Manege New York, 1990-1995 .

Awards: International Photography Awards 2013 . Black & White Spider Awards 2012 . Hasselblad Masters Awards 2008, 2010 . National Press Photographers Association 2013 . The Art Photography Show 2009 and others.

His works are in museum and private collections.

Kirill Ovchinnikov. Photo: Lee

Liya Khafizova

THE BEGINNING

– I’ve been drawing a lot since I was a kid, I went to art school, I’m a history buff. After the 8th grade I went to high school in 1905 – did not get in. Went to art and theater school, did a year there – didn’t like it. Didn’t study anywhere for a year. I finished the Evening School for Workers’ Youth in three months, got my high school diploma. Worked as a molder at a steel mill. Entered history department of the university. Didn’t get in, joined the army.

In the army, I met an artist from a decorating company. They used to decorate gymnasiums and assembly halls. I remembered I was an artist too, so I drew with them. After the army, I knew for sure that I had to continue my artistic career. Worked with oil painting. I took my work to the Manege, there was this yearly union exhibition of artists which had, as we would say now, an admissions committee. I was immediately accepted into the Union of Graphic Artists. After that, I believed in myself and kept on writing. He enrolled in the Art Department, continued to work and study at the evening department of the.

Graduated from college, worked in a school – that was a must for young professionals. I worked for a year as a drawing and painting teacher. I was 21 years old, such big foreheads came to me, they had to be pacified, and I beat them with a ruler. Worked. Painted. But then Perestroika happened, and everything changed drastically. Life plan – to join the Union of Artists, to work on orders, to decorate clubs, swimming pools and cultural centers – melted away.

PERESTROIK

– The 90s came. I went to Izmailovo, tried to sell my works to foreigners at Vernisage, took part in exhibitions. In 1996, I decided that painting was over. I got a family, two kids. I had to support them. I gave it all up and went into commerce. I traded in Luzhniki, went to Turkey for goods. At first, everything was interesting, exciting: Turkey, sacks, shuttles. I walked all over Turkey. He traveled and wrote diaries. One of them was published in “The Bear” magazine. I thought, “This is cool! That’s what I’m going to do in the future.”. I worked a lot with “Bear” and even did photographic productions.

At the same time, I wrote articles for other magazines. An architect friend of mine brought me to the “World and Home” magazine. I wrote texts about interiors. It was a fool’s errand. I wanted to do something interesting, and what interesting can you write about an interior?? I came up with some fantastic stories, even won some prize for an essay about a design studio. Then I decided to get more artistic and started designing a magazine. I combined the duties of an art director and photo editor. I learned how to make it and spent three years setting up the magazine, that’s where I met different photographers. I didn’t even think about taking pictures myself. I acted as a director and producer of the shoot.

REALLY NOTHING

– One day I looked at photography and thought, “Photography is like painting, only faster”. And I said to the editor-in-chief, “We pay photographers so much to take pictures. “Buy me a camera – I’ll take my own pictures!”.

The editor didn’t realize that he could lose his art director that way. He said: “That’s great!” – and bought me a camera. I walked around with a camera for six months, read a couple of books. I was immediately ordered to rent some house, some new buildings. It turned out pretty good. That’s how I started shooting. Salon Interior was the first domestic interior design magazine, and it was very prestigious to get in. I was trusted to shoot a floral composition. I took pictures at an open aperture, which was an innovation in interior photography at the time. The explanation was simple: I didn’t like the artificiality of flashes. I had one movie baby with a Fresnel lens, a present from Dima Livshits, and I tried to use natural light as much as possible. I’ve always loved natural light and I understand how it works. The magazine told me: “Kirill, you know how to shoot like this, sharply and unsharply, shoot like this for us…”.

There’s an interesting story connected to Interior + Design magazine. The photographer who was supposed to shoot the architect and Italian design star Giulio Cappellini, who came to New York for a couple of days, either refused or got sick. They asked me I happened to be there by chance – I think I brought my first photo shoot . I went. I had to take pictures in the interior salon. A lot of furniture, some people, I think there was a buffet. I thought: “Where could I film him??”. Outside the windows: winter, snow. I took him outside and shot him in his jacket and boots in the snow in front of his own red and white ads. It was interesting and, at the time, quite avant-garde. Everyone liked it, they published it.

Since Cappellini asked me to bring him some photos, I ran to him the next day with freshly printed negatives. An Italian, who had been photographed by a million photographers, looked at it and said: “I’ll buy these pictures from you for what it’s worth?”. – “One hundred dollars,” I said, the first thing that came into my head. He bought it all, and I thought that was a good sign for my first job. After that, I shot a lot of different portraits for different magazines. I’ve always liked shooting people – more so than shooting interiors. I like to shoot interiors – calm and measured – as a training session. You set up the frame, you work with the light. Reminds me of the way painters used to paint still lifes. Quiet studio work.

MEXICO. LIVAN. TURNING POINT

– As soon as there was an opportunity to shoot travel, I jumped at every opportunity to go somewhere. I went to Mexico for “Around the World”. Also, by the way, instead of the wonderful Boris Bendikov, who was approved, but couldn’t go because of an ad shoot. That’s what recommended me. The story “Day of the Dead in Mexico” was exhibited at the Museum of Architecture, where I got to know Andrey Polikanov, photo director of American Reporter magazine.

We have been working together for many years now. My first camera was a medium format Asahi Pentax, then a gimbal camera. I’ve never shot with a reportage camera, and I wanted to shoot a reportage. But you can’t really film it on a cardan unless it’s a war-torn city . I went to TASS and said I wanted to go to Lebanon, I didn’t need any money, just send me away. They agreed, I bought a Hasselblad and went to Beirut, where the shelling had just ended. I shot the story of Merry Christmas in Lebanon there. I sent it to an international competition and it won second place. This was my introduction to documentary photography.

– Nowadays you often get orders to shoot portraits and interiors?

– The era of the total popularity of magazines is over. They are cutting back on orders. It’s happening less and less often. Sometimes I shoot portraits for Vogue and Bazaar. I shoot digitally, in color, and I don’t really like it. I’m at a breaking point right now. There are few clients who need something unusual, creative. Most people want something clear and standard.

– But there are still customers who want something out of the ordinary?

– For the book “The Kargopolsky Journey” I shot it the way I’ve always wanted to: not a product, but art. It’s not even the unusualness, but the trust in your taste and outlook, in the absence of artistic frames. When they say right away, “we don’t need art,” it means there will be no art.

– It’s a beautiful story!

– That was the case with Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant for Rosgidro, when I took part in People of the World.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND PAINTING

– Is your “scenic” education helping or hindering you as a photographer?

– The first thought that comes to mind if I’m going to make an image: how to arrange the elements in the frame or on the canvas. In this case there is no difference between painting and photography. What’s important is how you position it and how you light it.

– Imagine that some boys of about 12 years old came to you to study. What is the first assignment you would give them?? What would be the first lesson in photography??

– From art history and drawing. I’d get them to draw a pyramid, a cube and a sphere. I wouldn’t set out to do an art school like they do in art school – they want to teach you the stroke – I’d confine myself to the line. Next I would suggest sketching a landscape in situ. Because sketching just teaches you how to capture the essence and convey the image. When I started shooting, I kept trying to figure out the difference between photography and painting. Trying to understand what photography is. I’ve looked at a lot of different photographs.

– Tell me how you shoot portraits. Portrait seems to me to be the most difficult genre of photography, despite its seeming simplicity.

– A good portrait is born of interest on both sides: the portrait subject and the portrait painter. The genre of portraiture hasn’t changed since time immemorial. Painters took a long time to paint a portrait, photography does it much faster. As a former painter, I like it: the time is reduced. The artist has to find a form, make blanks and, after a lot of work and effort, get a portrait. But it has more time to convey a mood. The painterly portrait has made the circle from realistic to abstract. On the whole, painting has made a circle and closed in on the abstract. One of the reasons I left painting. To me, abstract is the end of art. It seems to me that every art form has its own meaning, its own specificity and functionality, its own clear purpose. Now photography has made a circle too, and they’ve started to talk about whether photography is necessary, what photography is in general..

For me photography is about the moment, the soul of the moment, the essence of the moment. The time given for a portrait cannot be very long, but it cannot be very short either. Paolo Roversi’s words are very familiar to me: if there is no light, there is no image. He thinks that the longer the exposure time for a portrait, the more of the soul of the subject is captured on film. I believe in that. A portrait taken at 1/2000 is different from a portrait taken at 1/8. Time and exposure must have something to convey. Perhaps the connection between the subject and the portraitist, the atmosphere that emerges.

– It seems to me that if you don’t have this connection, you don’t make a good portrait: it’s either incidental or formal. In my opinion, there are no ready-made recipes, you cannot derive a formula for a masterpiece, write it down on paper and pass it on as the only possible way to “make” a portrait.

– I agree. Perhaps a very long exposure acquires something perfect, but it loses marketable quality.

– You’ve probably encountered it when what you get doesn’t really like it. Because there’s a certain ideal in your mind, a certain masterpiece that you’re trying to get close to?

– Yes, I’ve seen it, but it’s debatable. The photo is a moment. A portrait can’t become a portrait for the ages. A perfect photograph can only be perfect for a specific time period.

– What is your task as a portrait painter?

– I don’t have any overarching concerns when taking a portrait. For me a good portrait is one without anything superfluous. If you can get away with it, then it’s a good portrait.

– But you can’t say that the portrait and the person you shot are 100 percent identical?

– It’s impossible. Because humans are diverse and it’s impossible to capture their diversity in a single portrait. The human gaze captures the diversity of the other person. The look can be compared to a thousand pictures. The gaze is three-dimensional, it has a way of idealizing, of giving a person something they don’t have, of capturing a person’s mood and atmosphere. And a camera, film, or sensor can’t capture that. Technique has limited possibilities, but the author, with the help of technical tricks, can expand the boundaries of perception and somehow convey the atmosphere and mood. If it works, it’s good.

– Do you have a secret technique or trick that you use to shoot portraits??

– No, I tell everybody about everything. I don’t have any tricks. I just don’t photograph people in unnatural conditions for them, in unnatural poses for them, I don’t make them jump up and down, do things that aren’t typical of them unless it’s part of the concept . I usually suggest that the person sit or stand the way they want to sit or stand and think about what they want. Sometimes if a person can’t do it, I try to help them.

– Does a portrait photographer have to feel some kind of emotion towards the person he or she is photographing??

– The state before taking a picture is very important. It has to be balanced and unbiased. Even if nothing works, if there’s no contact with the person you’re portraying, you still have to be calm and pretend nothing happened. You have to learn to shoot in the blink of an eye. I know photographers who wear out their characters to exhaustion. The “in a moment” technique makes it possible to catch a person off guard, and he doesn’t have time to react. Emotions can get in the way. Friends and family are more difficult to photograph: you’re trapped in a stereotypical relationship. Strangers are more interesting to shoot. The process of shooting becomes a process of recognition and discovery. The first look is the right one. I would compare it to how easy it is to photograph a foreign country and how difficult it is to photograph your own. You like a foreign country, everything is new to you, and you notice things that people who live there don’t.

– I agree, the hardest thing to photograph is the country, the city you live in. Maybe that’s why we don’t have so many interesting photos of New York, although there are a lot of talented photographers living here.

– Yes, New York is hard to shoot. Especially on their own volition. It’s easier to work to order. Then you have a limited time frame and a clear objective. You’re afraid to let people down, you want to maintain your brand and reputation, you want to step over yourself, you want to make money. There’s a tough motivation.

– What happens when you give yourself a job??

– For this you have to be even more focused, you have to draw the will..

BEAUTY AND HARMONY

– Your inner theme is what it is?

– I look for it. More precisely, there is such a theme, but I haven’t found a use for it yet. I’m always looking for Beauty no matter what I’m shooting. Even when I wasn’t a photographer yet, I was an artist. For me, beauty is always the main and decisive indicator of what I have to convey. But modernity demands something else.

– Beauty is a dirty word these days

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– I know. And I was almost convinced that you can’t talk about it.

– But you didn’t believe it?

– Almost believed.

– Beauty is a word of many meanings, many tiers. We talk about beauty or harmony?

– They’re almost synonymous. Beauty is harmony in everything: color, light, proportions. The notion of harmony is broader than beauty. Beauty is a hackneyed word, spat on, unfashionable. I still think that everyone should like a real masterpiece, regardless of beliefs, age or anything else. If it’s a real masterpiece, it’ll appeal to the plumber, the carpenter, the physics teacher and the art critic. Everybody likes a masterpiece.

– What do you think a masterpiece is??

– In my opinion, a masterpiece is harmony. That’s true photography. It’s a big moment. A perfect composition. Perfect light and color harmony. Content that is understandable and close to everyone. Everyone is still studying masterpieces that are not so much revolutionary as evolutionary and harmonious. They’re understandable to anyone. And what is close to the critics may be cheap innovation, understandable only to a limited circle.

– It seems to me that the critic, with broad information, compares any new work with what has already been, and tries to find its place and definition. Roughly speaking, to do marking and inventory. How many fashion trends and movements there are in our memory. They come and go, despite the pervasiveness of my fascination with them. They’re rather experimental, exploratory. Is it always necessary to follow fashion?

– But I have to. Though not always necessary.

– Your fascination with the gimbal camera, shooting on film – isn’t it dictated by a desire to get away from the mainstream and do something of your own?

– Not so. I started shooting with a large-format camera because I was shooting interiors and architecture. And when I started shooting, I realized the beauty of the camera and what it can do. I couldn’t part with it any further.

– You used a gimbal camera to shoot Krymsk?

– No, on a Hassel, like Beirut after the war. Krymsk is an example of the right strategy and technical solution to a given problem. I came to Krymsk on the fourth day of the tragedy. Quickly realized that you have to shoot inside the houses and you have to shoot in color. In the house, you can see everything, to what level the water reached, what was affected. I put my characters, I chose their place. I was recording and filming at the same time. I shot quickly, because after a while they started to get out of the state I wanted and started to pose. I started filming people and I realized: they’re witnesses. Each one tells their own story – we get the big picture. It was very hot. I used to walk a lot of kilometers in a day. It was physically and psychologically difficult.

– In Kargopol, you went back to the gimbal camera. How do you think you completed your Kargopol journey?*

– No, I don’t think I finished the project. I always shoot something for myself in any project. It’s more like this: I shoot everything for myself. In every project I try to shoot as much as possible for the task at hand, and I don’t miss an opportunity to shoot something interesting beyond it, beyond the order. I would love to go back to Kargopol and do some more “human” stories. Looking for opportunities. So many interesting things. You know, I feel like I’m at the beginning of my journey. Still, I have not formulated my inner theme yet.

– So, you’ll live a long time.

“Kargopolskoe Journey. Seven routes across the northern American land with the Kargopol historical-architectural and art museum”. M.: The First Publication Program of the non-profit charitable organization “V. Charitable Foundation. Potanin, 2014. 836 s.: 773 il. The book won the national “Book of the Year” contest in 2014 in the “Art Book” category. Ovchinnikov worked on the project together with another photographer, Sergey Melikhov. Sergey filmed people’s life and rituals, Kirill – architecture and atmosphere. Editor-in-chief Lilia Khafizova. Art director Evgeny Korneev.

Igor and Olga Gorbachenko. Their son Stanislav. “We have eleven children, the youngest were all sent to the camp. Thank God, the house survived. Although we are at the very

my river live. They were in the attic. A lot of help is coming from a lot of people, from different people. They bring both food and laundry. Thank you all. We have a big family, we can do it. 16 Naberezhnaya Street.

Shooting for

The American Reporter magazine

Lesha, Albina’s neighbor: Yes, I knew her, we used to walk together. They’ve been living here recently. Uncle Jura from the attic chiseled a hole, wanted to get them out. But did not have time. They all shouted and shouted, then stopped. I couldn’t jump into the water from the attic, the current was too strong. And the window is completely underwater. I was sitting in the attic next door and saw everything. 218 Sovetskaya Street

Shooting for “American reporter” magazine

Ovchinnikov