Meet the 500px World Pictures Awards Fantastic Artwork Class Winner

The 2022 500px World Pictures Awards serves creatives working with pictures and offers them an opportunity to showcase their talent and be rewarded for it. The second version of the competitors consisted of six classes: Technical, Storytelling, Industrial Content material, Documentary, Fantastic Artwork, and Panorama. Immediately on the weblog we’re speaking with the winner of the Fine Art class, Elena Paraskeva, as she tells us extra in regards to the picture.

Hello Elena, please introduce your self.

Consider it or not, my masters was in finance, and my profession within the US was first as a Director of Analytics after which as a Advertising Govt for Nestle Waters.

I’m utterly self-taught, by no means attended a single workshop, and fast-forward a decade later, my work is at the moment on exhibition on the European Parliament in Brussels.

I’m a devoted Adobe Teacher, instructing 1000’s on my course of, and I’m a choose for a few of the world’s most esteemed pictures competitions together with for the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts.

The profitable picture: “Retaining the Distance”

What made you gravitate to this fashion of pictures—pushing the boundaries of illustration and creating work extra conceptual in nature?
I contemplate myself to be a fancy particular person, and as such, I need my interplay with the viewer to happen in a extra complicated, contextual house the place the which means and intention isn’t instantly out there to understand. A extra concerned dialog of the minds must occur for the unraveling of the unique concept to be attained.

Are you able to inform us the way you deliberate and executed the shoot for the “Retaining the Distance” picture?
The actual picture is a part of an 8-image sequence that has been featured extensively in magazines around the globe. The challenge was really created proper after our lockdowns ended. It was a surreal time if you consider it, the concern, and the necessity to distance ourselves was so intense, all of us went by means of a never-before-seen degree of social deprivation. The challenge explores society’s awkward makes an attempt at re-integration, utilizing humor and shade.

There are such a lot of components inside this picture. Was it a problem working with so many components of shade, props, and fashions?
I’ve a course of once I create a sequence, and all of it begins with me writing down the storyline and the message. I then scout for places and take photos of every body inside this location. As soon as I’ve honed in on the particular frames, I elaborate on the composition, writing down the poses, the props, the clothes, and, in fact, the particular lighting for use. Every little thing is predetermined means earlier than the day of the shoot, nothing is left to likelihood. In that sense, it’s simple on the day of the shoot, I do know precisely what I’m going for.

Do you will have a favourite picture in your 500px Profile and why?
I’m all the time extra emotionally linked to a sequence moderately than particular person pictures, due to the intrinsic message behind them and the time funding. However If I had to decide on a picture or two, I’d say the “Cubist” (I & II) as a result of they’re so consultant of my conceptual fashion and sensibility.

All photographers have their most well-liked gear. What’s yours, and what instruments did you employ to create “Keeping the Distance”?
I’m a Nikon photographer, so all my gear (digital camera and lenses) is Nikon. I don’t have a favourite lens to be sincere, as a result of I discover that every lens has its personal worth relying on the kind of shoot concerned. If I’m doing a nice artwork portrait, I take advantage of an extended lens, but when I’m doing a style shoot, I take advantage of a wide-angle one, and I really love the distortion.

This explicit sequence was environmentally primarily based and all the weather within the body wanted to be in focus, so I used a wide-angle lens mounted on my tripod. Lighting was the identical for each picture within the sequence, as I wish to have light-cohesiveness, and because it was a harsh and really brilliant day, the aim was to make use of the solar as the primary supply, and the strobes because the secondary supply that removed the cruel shadows. For that reason, I used massive octaboxes for even protection.

Framing and taking the shot is barely a sliver of what it takes to make a powerful picture. The opposite equally necessary half is enhancing, how did you employ enhancing instruments to raise your picture?
That is very true, enhancing performs a major function in my work. For this explicit sequence, I used Photoshop to merge all of the totally different exposures I created for every scene since I used to be working with a single mannequin. I additionally performed with shade to be sure that the color-blocking I envisioned can be the identical for every picture. Colour grading for me is the final step of the method and it’s what separates a great picture from an excellent picture!

When submitting your work to the awards, how did you choose out of your various portfolio and determine on the very best pictures? Curation is usually a battle for creatives so do you will have any tips about be selective and intentional in the case of submitting your work to competitions?
All of it comes all the way down to which competitors you’re submitting to. Analysis previous winners to see what the competitors gravitates in direction of. Is it realism, rawness, documentary-style pictures, or very stylized, pop, colourful, or surreal imagery?

For instance, the Lensculture and Sony competitions require very totally different imagery from say the ICA, Chromatica Awards, IPA, FAPA and so forth. The primary competitions love and recognize extra documentary fashion pictures and present issue-based imagery, whereas the latter award the surprising and the extra technically primarily based.

Not on 500px but? Sign up here to discover extra impactful pictures.

Undergo our Quests challenges to check your abilities and win thrilling prizes.

Associated