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Georgiy Pinkhasov – internationally celebrated photographer and participant in the Photo Biennale – had far too little time in Moscow. A few hours before he flew out of Russia, he conducted a master-class portfolio session at the Vinzavod, but he was in a terrible hurry, so instead of an interview, Georgiy offered DEI the chance to record his conversations with the photographers who had paid for the opportunity to receive the master’s advice. During the master-class, Pinkhasov was in top form, not only accurately assessing the photographers work, but also sharing his thoughts on photography in general, culture and art which you will not often hear form many an artist.
Photography in its form is comparable to the integrity of human personality. The search for a style which will appeal to everyone bears no relationship whatsoever to creativity. If you don’t experience a sense of internal shock, a feeling of infatuation, or deep concern, change your profession. Creativity is a concentration of personal, individual sensations, as if somewhere deep down inside music is playing and nothing can silence it. How that music sounds is tuned by what you see and hear. It’s important to constantly visit museums and galleries and it’s helpful to go at different times when familiar things start to take on a new quality. Bit by bit it becomes clear not what is important and fashionable, but there appears an accord. When there is a sense of taste, energy, strength, there is nothing to fear.
It seems to us both correct and logical that to reach ones goals, you should take the beaten path. For example, you look for mushrooms in the forest. However tragic it might seem, this is not quite the way things are. If you get in the end what you want, then there is no great loss for you. It’s natural enough that you got up, went out, sought and found avoiding mishaps and falls and when they happen you get up again and you’ll see things slightly differently, the opposite effect of falling. The winning situation is when you are on your way to see your lover, you break your leg, you get saved by someone, you lose your lover, and you marry the one that saved you. Life is tragic, and art is unpredictable. I think that we have to provoke unpredictability more and react to it.
One of the commonest mistakes regards eclectica. You have to straight away decide in what style you are going to take your photographs. If you like a grey tone, then try at least to make sure that you avoid whites. And do whatever your soul guides you to. Photography has to be spontaneous. You can think when you’re developing, better still to meditate. A photograph has to contain the phenomena of enigma. The setting of the photo can be space, then the macro-world, or simply a person lying down.
When Rodchenko took his masterpieces, he didn’t look for new angles or compositions. He was an artist who made posters. To be able to quickly cut out someone’s portrait or the contour of a factory from a shot, he always photographed at a angle against a background of the sky for convenience. A then it turned out that these shots make wonderful photographs.
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© DE I / DESILLUSIONIST ¹-1. "GEORGIY PINKHASOV’S SECRET ROOM"
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