Interview with Fashion photographer Gennadiy Chernomashintsev | MONOVISIONS

MonoVisions Black & White Photo Contest 2024

I was born in USSR in 1968, now live in Ukraine. I work as art director in DOMINO magazine (Ukrainian magazine) and as freelance fashion photographer. I always like photography. I mean I like this images in fashion magazine, beautiful fashion b/w ad etc. In my childhood I had a great Soviet camera ФЕД . It was a really great rangfinder camera russian clone of leica. My father bought it for me. It was magic.

How and when did you become interested in photography?

I used to work as film director for many years, mostly in commercial and music video. Then I decided to switch on photography because I was quite bored with a big crew (and also because working on video fields means waking up early 😉 ) But actually I prefer working without assistants, big lighting set-ups and grips.

Is there any artist/photographer who inspired your art?

I have always been inspired by Helmut Newton, Jean loup Sieff and Ralph Gibson. High contrast, grainy images. I like it.

Why do you work in black and white rather than colour?

I simply dislike color. And I think that black and white photography is something timeless. Just take look at photos of 50-60th. Technologies change all the time but these images are eternal and still evoke the same feelings.

How much preparation do you put into taking a photograph/series of photographs?

I started working digitally recently. My current camera is Leica MP9 and I use 35/1.4 lens. Almost all my works were created with Leica M6. Even working digitally I don’t spend plenty of time doing post-processing. I’m trying to stay close to analogy process, don’t look at the camera screen, do the same amount of frames as it was on film and I also wait for a couple of days before starting post-processing… I don’t use lighting setups and prefer available light.

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