He’s barely 20, yet his résumé is already choke full. And already a very personal visual style and a professional approach to photography. His site immerses the visitor in his world: a world of deeply sensitive, very conceptual photography.
Anatoly Ivanov is in-between coasts: that of Moscow, his country, where he studied painting and marketing in university, and that of Paris, where he developed his professional photography by doing internships at Magnum and Sipa, in conjunction with training in a business school.
His passion for photography began experimentally, while taking pictures in Moscow’s techno clubs, pictures that would be published in Russian music magazines.
From his studies of painting, he carries on an artistic approach that focuses on the visual beauty of color, infused with a concept. An approach that he also applies to web design and digital retouching. His favorite subjects are portraits, urbanism, high-tech objects, as well as anti-pop, anti-mass culture and anti-fashion photographs. Technically, he prefers to work in situ and in hybrid mode (color slide film – scanning – digital retouching – cross-media output).
His head is full of projects! Since he has won numerous web design awards, he is flooded by orders (site creation and digital retouching for major magazines, like Vogue). Finally, he decides to create with fellow artists SYLIPSI, a web design service. But when is the next exhibition? It’s still too early to talk about it. So patience! Other photos will be posted on the site, and we are waiting for this mysterious project: “1m x 2m prints on the new Epson 9500!”
So, in one click, dive into the color pages of this minimalist site replete with full-screen images of great beauty.
It is a bit difficult to answer because I no longer work in Russia since two years. The trends in photography in Russia are pretty academic. The preference remains for black and white pictures in Doisneau style. However, a lot of new galleries, photo magazines and websites appear. In addition, photographers “banned” during the Soviet era are being shown. The best Russian photographers try to work with Europe and the US.
Concerning digital, I do not really know. My lab-printer in Moscow tells me he has lost a good deal of photographers who now print on ink-jet printers. On the other hand, all Russian photographers I know are still shooting film, and, after all, you have to keep in mind that film, processing and printing in Russia are far less expensive than in France.
It’s the same as with internet, at first, nobody wanted it in France, while in the United States everyone was using it already. Today people are beginning to understand its magnitude! Digital is great, but it brings several problems that prevent photographers from switching immediately. Basically, to become digital, either you subcontract, or you do everything yourself.
Subcontracting is the ideal way to get started in digital, but in France, it is terribly expensive!
If you do everything yourself, the main problem is technical. Right now, the portable digital cameras do not have a high enough resolution to suit any type of final use; studio cameras can scan only motionless objects. If you’re not in the case of photojournalists for whom the resolution of a Nikon D1 or a Canon D2000 is enough, or in the case of still-life photographers, the only solution is to adapt a hybrid approach: image capture is film-based, and the rest is digital.
There is also a financial problem. Hybrid or not, the equipment requires a significant investment (...) minimum 300 000 franks (excluding VAT)! Not to mention that the learning curve of digital photography is very steep (digital retouching, color management, printing, simply dealing with computers) which requires at least one year of learning day and night.
Once these problems will improve, photographers will no longer hesitate a second, in France or elsewhere. For the moment, most photographers converted to digital in France are those who were forced to do so. That is, news and sports photographers, for whom digital is a question of life or death, and also those who work in advertising.
/ Laurence KONIECZNY / Canal+ TV / www.photonum.com / Paris, FRANCE / 2001-01
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