Faces

Interview with Lia Mstislavskaya

 

How and why did you get into photography?

Accidentally. I was at high school and fell in love with photos of 90s supermodels. I really wanted to have pictures like that for myself. I bought a very simple camera and started with self-portraits. Maybe few months later, my friends started to ask me to make pictures for them and so I did. From there it was like marry-go-round.

Your style looks very elegant, iconic, a mixture of very modern but classic at the same time. What are the photographers that influenced your way of taking photos?

Other photographers did not and still don’t have any impact on my photography. I don’t even really know any. My imagery is more influenced by the world of literature. William Somerset Maugham, Herbert George Wells, Erich Maria Remarque, Ray Douglas Bradbury.

You shoot digital, but they appear analogue. Why are you taking this detour?

Never thought about this actually. Perhaps because I simply don’t like glamorous photography, with this artificial look of “ideal” skin and textures

You are living in Moscow but you travel nine months of the year. Why are doing this and how does this show in your photography?

The road is my life. I believe, you can never be open minded if you don’t travel. I also write. So I travel to catch some inspiration for my poems and stories. Usually I travel alone. I walk, read, think. I create very different pieces of art leveraging on the experiences from my journeys.

So, you are more an artist than photographer?

I don’t see myself as a photographer or commercial photographer at all. I am more like a creative director. I do the photography, videography, styling and the whole concept for my visual content on my own. This might end up to be commercial now and then, but only if I am interested. Currently I am focused on my new project which I run as a director. 

What is this project about and when could we see it?

My obsession are women. I cannot really say where the project will end-up, but you can be sure that view on women will be characterize the problem and that it will have a strong video element. I am in an early stage, so it is unclear when I will have finished it. It is just about to develop and startimg to flourish.