When we came across Victoria Petlitskaya’s collection, we were immediately drawn to the way she takes simple, minimal subjects and produces aesthetically intriguing compositions. When we discovered she shoots exclusively with her mobile phone, we knew we had to find out more.
We spoke to Stockimo contributor Victoria to learn what led her to discover her passion for photography, and what sparks her excitement when it comes to image making.
LG: How long have you been a photographer, and what made you want to get into photography?
VP: I think that it’s been about 6 years since I found my passion for photography. I guess it was a period in my life when I was kind of emotionally burned out and wanted to try something new, something that would excite me, something that could help me to express myself. Photography was the answer. Although I am not a professional photographer, I can’t imagine my life without a camera since then.
LG: Within your subject area, where or what is your favourite thing or site to photograph and why?
VP: I love to travel and visit new places since it’s always a great source of inspiration, but my favourite place is the sea. I see so much beauty and peace in it, so I am never tired of taking photos of it.
LG: What motivates you to be creative and keep on making images?
VP: I feel that my life would be empty if I stopped taking images, I just can’t imagine that. Every time I see a beautiful light or shadow on the wall, I am so excited that I can’t just let it go without taking a photo, so I can’t even say that I have to push myself to keep shooting. As I mentioned in the previous question, beauty is already around me, I just need to keep my eyes open.
LG: What’s your all-time favourite shot from your collection and why?
VP: What a difficult question! It’s like choosing only one favourite moment from your life. I definitely don’t have only one, but this (below) is one of my favourite recent shots. I love it because it’s so perfectly simple and beautiful. I think that it represents the main idea of my photography style, I concentrate on details, I try to show that beauty is everywhere and you just have to look around you.
LG: What would be your advice to others on editing images?
VP: As a minimalist photographer, it’s important to me to have my images clean of any distractions, so first of all I remove all unnecessary details using Photoshop tools.
Usually, my next step is to add a film-like look to my images, adding some grain, decreasing the contrast, and adding some warmth and green tint.
I use this style a lot so I already have some ready-to-go presets in Lightroom, but often I like to edit my images from scratch as it’s fun and it helps me to discover new interesting styles.
I am also a big fan of mobile apps like Afterlight and Snapseed; they have great filters which I use a lot, especially for my mobile photos.
We hope you enjoyed our spotlight feature with Victoria. If you did, make sure you’re following us on Instagram to catch our next spotlight. You can check out all of Victoria’s beautiful work here, and follow her on Instagram here.
If you’re anything like us, you’ve probably got thousands of images sitting in your phone. Victoria’s collection is a fantastic example of just how creative you can be when using a mobile phone to take photos. And, if you’ve got an iPhone, you never know, it might be worth checking out the Stockimo app for yourself!
