Olena Leliuk, recognized for her cinematic and artistic taste, whether or not she’s taking pictures a high-fashion editorial at the streets of Rome or a quiet second at a marriage. Her paintings steadily seems like a body from a movie. With a portfolio that incorporates each technically exact ingenious compositions and uncooked boulevard images, she has been featured in a large number of publications and is a revered voice within the 500px group.

We spoke with Olena about her ingenious procedure, the affect of Rome, and the way she maintains her signature visible id throughout other genres.

Your virtual presence is inextricably connected to Rome, a town that has been photographed in all probability greater than another on this planet. How do you set up to have a look at such iconic, historic environment and nonetheless discover a point of view that feels completely private and fresh?

My purchasers in particular request portraits in opposition to an architectural backdrop. To verify the backdrop is sharp and featured, I will’t shoot with an excessively open aperture. If I’m the use of a portrait lens, I stay the aperture at at least f/6.3 to f/8.

Your portfolio strikes fluidly between the inflexible construction of favor and the unpredictability of boulevard images. Do you in finding that the spontaneity of the streets informs your ingenious paintings, or do you would like stay the ones two worlds in separate silos?

I imagine a certified photographer will have to be flexible and adept at taking pictures numerous topics, structure, nonetheless lifestyles, style, and so on. I in finding myself balancing client-requested boulevard taste photograph periods with my very own arranged ingenious style shoots.

There’s a painterly high quality on your ingenious compositions that implies a deep intentionality. When you’re conceptualizing a brand new challenge, do you start with a particular visible metaphor in thoughts, or does the tale emerge best within the second, at the shoot?

I all the time expand the core thought earlier than the shoot. After all, new concepts steadily emerge right through the ingenious go with the flow of the consultation, which is a smart addition to the unique imaginative and prescient.

Wedding ceremony images is steadily considered via a purely documentary lens, but your wedding ceremony paintings carries the similar high-fashion DNA as your portraits. How do you persuade your topics to step out of the normal “bridal” mindset and into your extra atmospheric, creative imaginative and prescient?

For me, the perfect wedding ceremony shoot is a strategic mixture of truthful reportage and thoughtfully staged images (the latter lets in us to create the ones sublime, high-fashion pictures, every now and then even with a marginally of humor).

I in finding that {couples} who in fact admire this creative imaginative and prescient and attractiveness are very happy to pose for a short time. This is a consistent negotiation, after all, as we’re all the time conscious that point on a marriage day is an excessively restricted useful resource!

You’ve got been featured in a large number of publications all the way through your profession. Whilst you see your paintings curated in {a magazine} as opposed to dwelling on a platform like 500px, does it alternate your personal belief of the “worth” or “good fortune” of the ones explicit pictures?

Completely, the perceived worth of {a photograph} is indisputably heightened after it’s been curated and revealed in {a magazine} or showcased on a extremely revered platform like 500px. It serves as a significant, public, and exterior type of reputation, now not simply of the photograph itself, however of my professionalism and determination to the craft.

On your portraiture, there’s steadily a way of lovely stress between the fashion and the surroundings. What’s your procedure for construction a rapport with a topic to verify they aren’t simply posing, however in truth inhabiting the gap you have got created for them?

Whilst a certified fashion intuitively senses the ambience I’ve created and of course strikes into suitable poses, I steadily paintings with newbie fashions. In the ones eventualities, my complete procedure shifts to actively construction rapport. I focal point on enjoyable them, giving them my power, and supporting them all the way through the consultation, steadily with a couple of jokes.

Each artist reports a shift of their “eye” over the years. When you glance again at your earliest paintings in Rome in comparison to your portfolio these days, what’s the one technical or emotional addiction you might be maximum happy you outgrew?

Emotionally, I’m maximum happy I realized to let cross and easily now not fear earlier than a photograph shoot; it lets in for a miles clearer ingenious thoughts. From a technical point of view, the most important alternate is a small however important lesson: making sure my lens’s autofocus is conscientiously checked earlier than each and every unmarried consultation. It kind of feels minor, but it surely’s the type of technical element that may be the variation between a a hit shot and a misplaced alternative.

Inspiration is a fickle useful resource. When the sunshine in Italy isn’t hitting rather proper or the ingenious smartly feels dry, the place do you flip outdoor of the sector of images to seek out your spark once more?

When the sunshine isn’t proper, use further lights to craft the sunshine you need. For ingenious inspiration, I flip to the paintings of different photographers, and I in finding quite a lot of spark inside the curated, numerous group on 500px.

A prior featured photographer, Emil Nygard, requested, “In an international the place images is more and more rapid and pushed through fast effects, how do you for my part give protection to your sense of interest and interior calm?”

My ingenious images are smartly concept out, high quality isn’t created through amount.

Finally, Do you have got any upcoming tasks or shoots your want to proportion or advertise?

My most up-to-date challenge used to be a colourful and vibrant style photograph shoot that came about in a studio and targeted across the visible thought of big cleaning soap bubbles. It used to be a stupendous workout in combining ingenious composition with technical lights.

Learn extra 500px Photographer Highlight interviews: Emil Nygård