Your Story: Lara Kantardjian
In our Your Story feature, we ask our members some questions to learn more about what inspires their photography, the processes they use to make images, and the stories behind their pictures.
Q. What's the story behind this photo?
A. It was photographed in the Lazio coastal region of Rome in summer 2016. It is from the series āUrban Pulse: Romeā (2015-2016), which has been featured in LensCulture, Resource Magazine, Kiosk der Demokratie, and Italian Ways. The description I have used for the series and the process of photographing in an urban setting in general is of wandering the streets like a spectator from Rilkeās Duino Elegies, always seeing, feeling, and connecting to everythingāin search of a certain mood, a certain lightāfrom the ordinary to the sublime state.
Q. How was this image made?
A. Spontaneously, while taking a break at a beach bar from photographing by the coast.
Having observed everything around me, I noticed the volleyball courts starting to empty. Something about the last player to leave caught my eye and held my attention. There was something about himāhis look and demeanorāthat interested me. I was simply drawn to him. Itās a feeling you get. You see a person, a scene, and suddenly you have a creative need to make a photograph. Nothing else at that point in time matters except capturing the moment.
I instinctively reached for my Ricoh camera with a fixed 28mm lens. Within a few secondsābefore he reached the corner of the pathāI had made my way there, leaned down, and composed what I wanted in the frame. With my eyes locked on him (not the viewfinder), I waited for the moment he turned and was mid-stride. When his back was against the cloud, I felt that it could appear either as an angelās wing or a sense of oneās head being in the clouds, and I made this image.
Q. What do you think about when youāre photographing?
A. When I am in my photo zone, I donāt think. I photograph instinctively and with my soul. And when you make photographs with your soul, you empty your thoughts to leave space to let things in. You think visually. By doing so, you are completely focused and in a heightened sense of seeing, feeling, andāto paraphrase Andrei Tarkovskyāwith an awareness of the world that impacts the way you relate to reality.
Q. How would you describe your photographic style?
A. Fine art urban photography, documenting daily life on the streets and farther on in black and white using predominantly traditional film. I would say my style has elements of existentialist narrative and poetic realism, with an affinity to cinematic mood and lighting.
Q. Why do you take pictures?
A. I like to convey what I feel and try to transform emotions into images. I want to bring out an alternative point of view that stimulates the spectatorās imagination and does not necessarily reflect what we usually see in reality.
Q. How did you discover the Your Shot community?
A. Wanting to know more about some of the curators I was working with at the time led me to links of their published photographs on Your Shot.
See more photographs by Lara Kantardjian on Your Shot.