All my interests and hobbies are somehow connected to photography. The hole context of my life helps me to do better my work, generate new ideas and create a great team of professionals.
First of all I love learning.
Learning languages, new IT technologies, science.
I am in constant search and discovery.
I won two grants to make my Bachelor and so I was doing studies in two different universities at a time: State University of Finance and State University of Economics and Engineering, feeling a need to understand how different spheres are connected.
I went for several months to study in London and then to France as Erasmus student.
Further I achieved my Master of Consulting and Organizational innovation in an engineering school ESTIA in France, being the top student according to ranking. Nothing to do with photography at a first glance. But actually every shooting is a project. With its team, goals and resources. And when you photograph 50 different looks for a brand, you need to be very good in project management and team building. You need to create an idea, make it work and bring benefit.
And my first job was exactly that, for 5 years I worked as Business Process Consultant for Airbus, Thales and Ministry of Finance of France.
I was creating new ways of working and developing new software that would make the work of other people more comfortable and efficient. When now I look back on this experience, I understand that I made an everyday work more simple for more that 10.000 people. It is worth all the studies I made before, right?
My second passion is people.
Meeting new people, trying to understand their lives and choices. Early during my studies I wanted to create events and different studying opportunities in a university student union.
Our team created more that 30 events in 4 years and it was my first experience in reportage photography, publicity and project management. After that experience and 5 years in project management I know that I can make real any creative idea, anywhere and at any time. And will find the best team to do that.
Paris Fashion week, shooting for brands, model tests: all that contribute to my passion for connecting people and bringing people together.
And my third passion is fashion and art.
In the past I had a guide licence for making excursions in Saint-Petersburg and I spent every Saturday during 4 years in the Hermitage museum (a Saint-Petersburg museum with more than 3 million art pieces), learning the art and history of art with a special Hermitage week-end course.
All these passions led me to photography.
It is at a time, a science and an art, strongly connected to people and psychologie.
I started with gastronomical photography, attending the courses of leading food photographers like Betty Binon, Linda Lomelino, Elise Dumas and Olesya Kuprin and continued with portraits and fashion photography, attending the courses of dramatical photography of Tatiana Ivanova, a Moscow based portrait photographer.
What is next?
Now I continue to discover the photography through different master classes, online programs of Saint Martin and Condé Nast. Because you know, more you learn, more you want to know. And I started to educate younger photographers in my private courses to share my experience.
Personal project "On top"
You can also have a look to my personal project, that is about feeling yourself free. The name of it is "On top" and it gather together strong personalities that are not afraid to be themselves. That are ready to do things differently.
It all started with a photo of a cleaning lady from one poor island of Cabo Verde. The inner confidence and power of this young cleaning lady was so impressive. It was in a such contrast with her work and her working uniform. When I first saw her I couldn't even move, just stayed still impressed by her inner beauty. The photos were published on Vogue website.
And then I understood: "Wait a minute, but there are so many other beautiful strong people around me that inspire so much!" Painters that struggle with the modern world to create what they feel, models that want to contribute to something bigger that just fast fashion, men that dress up in a very colorful and provocative way even though they can be beaten in the streets for that. And this is how this project appeared.
You can see what I am doing and what passionates me on my Instagram, I share there my thoughts, interesting things to do and inspiring experiences.
