Cristina Venedict: Interview for Cultartes

Nicole,Cultartes: Hello, Cristina! When did your passion for photography first started?

Cristina Venedict: I began photographing in 2006 with a compact camera. I thought it was great to have a camera in my hands, you feel like a director who creates a film. Photography gives me the opportunity to dream and create images; it helps me to keep going.

What equipment should use a photographer to reach to the quality of your works?

Any equipment is good in the beginning, as long as it helps to take photos. As time passes by you want more and the equipment seems to let you down. My first appearance in a print magazine was with photos I’ve taken with a camera entering level. For some time I have a full frame camera, but it doesn’t guarantee you the creativity increase. (Smile) I think the most important is to keep the passion alive. How long the passion is there, the other things go without saying, as compensation.

Have you ever felt that this story of yours has to reach to an end?

In 2012, I used the camera just to make my stock to “digital stories”; I’m not interested to deepen its functions because I didn’t saw it as a “tool”. It was my first period: the period of digital stories. Since 2012, I began another journey and this “tool” used for 6 years became my friend, I wanted to discover it and to deepen it. So, I changed my camera and went to a Nikon D7000; it is used on the manual and studied enough. (Smiles) Since then I do more portraits.

Do you photograph friends, models or a mix of both?

A little bit of each. I’ve always been fascinated by people. I like to watch them, to study the features side, to find stories. Everyone is unique, beautiful and unpredictable.

Can you associate your photos with a writer, for example?

Digital stories from my first period resulted to a beautiful collaboration with Andrei Vizitiu. He wrote some wonderful poems inspired by my images. I could give an example: Divorce. Lyrics: Andrei Vizitiu

”Din noi au rămas doar hainele,

Şi ploile, şi grâul din pictură.

Pe noi nici chipul nu ne vrea,

Nici păsările nu ne mai suportă,

Nici negrul nu ne-îmbratișează.

Alaltăieri eram şi verighete,

şi buze, şi mâini prin plete,

şi nas în vânt,

şi mângâiere pe obraz.

Acum ne-am murdărit sacoul şi rochia,

şi îmbrăţişăm suspinul!

SĂ BATĂĂĂ VÂNTUL!!!”

Can we talk about a transposition of yours when you are in the creative process?

I’m in a maze, I know I have to go out, and I keep searching and searching and searching the way out till I find it.

Some of your works wear an image of sadness, if not irony. How do you see this transition from one state to another? Do you have a particular message you want to impose through your photos?

I like that a photo of mine transmits and creates reactions of the viewers.

What do you think about contemporary art? Especially that today many who have a camera describe themselves as photographers.

Contemporary art is very diverse, unconventional willing. There are many good photographers; I think it is a period brimming with creativity. However, everything is relative, in this world everyone is a photographer.

Is Photoshop in your vision, the most important accessory of a photographer? If there were no such editing programs, do you believe that photography would have something to lose or contrary?

I use Photoshop. For me it is a good tool to express my senses in terms of colours, textures, but I can live without, too. Any manifestation of art is good, as long as they achieve their goal.

What artist has influenced you to the point that you consider him/her a mentor or a starting point?

Finishing High School Art, the painters has influenced my adolescence. Degas, Picasso, Toulouse Lautrec and many others, were the ones who have marked the strokes and rich experiences that you feel when you see a work created by them. Then I discovered the world of Maggie Taylor, but her world I discovered later when I was already fairly rooted in dreamland. During high school and college I was extremely passionate about fashion. I had collections of fashion magazines, trying all sorts of combinations and I was even pretty creative fashion combinations. All that surrounds us, fashion, lifestyle, human warmth and beauty are an inspiration.

Let’s play, if you want, a little game. How do you think the commandments of the Decalogue would sound for a photographer?

Hmh, I will play this game but these commandments are written on short notice:
1. Don’t take photos of a model on ice if she has stilettos;
2. A good camera doesn’t make a good photographer;
3. Don’t be limited by technical rules;
4. Don’t ignore the details;
5. Don’t keep the photos only on digital version, print them;
6. Don’t try to be what you are not;
7. Don’t forget your camera at home;
8. Don’t ignore colour and composition;
9. Always follow your instinct;
10. Don’t get in a routine.

What was the most unconventional thing you did ” in the name of photography ‘?

I went to Bucharest, by bus, I had a session to make. We stopped at a station, I took my camera with me, so no one would steal it from me. I spent 10 minutes at a table and then I got on the bus. Of course after 15 minutes I realized that I didn’t had my camera. I forgot it on the station. I went desperately to the driver, told him I wanted my camera back. I don’t know how I persuaded him, but we returned on the station, despite all the babble of a 40 passengers. But in the end it was a happy ending.

If you could replace the exhibition hall in order to promote your work, what place would you choose? I am thinking here of a more unusual thing. A church, a cave under water, maybe?

I participated in 2012 to a very interesting exhibition in London in a gallery located in a former crypt “The Crypt Gallery”. I liked it; it was a slightly unconventional but works were amazing. Aaaa… and I participated in a group exhibition in Botosani which was located in a dairy hall. It was nice to see what impact have the pictures on ordinary people, unaccustomed to visit the conventional galleries.

If Jesus would decide to come for the second time on Earth and he would have on his famous white robe a photo of yours, which one would you recommend him?

Now, to be funny I think “A Little Help”, an older picture, but very dear to me.