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Photography Culture

Women in Photography: Dasha Pears | HELSINKI

Chris Gampat
No Comments
08/02/2016
4 Mins read
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This is a syndicated blog post from Women in Photography. It is being republished with permission from Nicole Struppert. All images by Dasha Pears, used with permission.

Hello Dasha, thanks for submitting your work! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hi, and thanks for your interest to my photography! I’m a conceptual photographer from St. Petersburg, Russia, currently based in Helsinki, Finland. I’m self-taught, mostly. I use photography for expressing myself. I’m not documenting reality, I’m documenting myself and my imagination in my photos.

When did you first become interested into photography as a mode of expression and art form?
I first tried to express myself by photography about 5 years ago. I was interested in photography before that, but mostly in street and documentary genres. I also had a day job, that was very far from visual arts, so I didn’t actually have time to even think, that I could be anything but an office worker. Then a major change happened to my life: my elder daughter was born. For some reason her birth produced a burst of creativity inside me. I had a friend who encouraged me to try something new in photography. This is how I started taking conceptual portraits.

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How would you describe your work?
My images are stories that could have happened to the characters in them in some parallel reality. The stories come from my thoughts, observations and experiences. So, I could say, I tell a story about myself by visualising tales about my characters.

Where do get the ideas for your work ?
I try to see beauty in simple things and ordinary people and aim at showing it to the world. I do believe that we are constantly surrounded by miracles, but we do not recognize them because they come to us so gracefully and seamlessly. My work explores magic and beauty in ordinary people and simple things. Thus, I am very often inspired by people, things and places.

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Your work is very well composed! How did you cultivate your sense of composition?
Thank you! I got so-to-say formal education in composition in an arts school, which I attended, when I was a child. Later on, I studied composition by looking through the work of great masters of photography: Henry Cartier-Bresson, RIchard Avedon and of cause, Rodney Smith. I never stop learning though and I feel, that I still have a long way to go in order to become a master.

Congratulations for winning the Best of Russia Conceptual Contest! How do you feel about it? And do you think it is important for a photographer to take part in Contests?
Thank you! It was a big surprise for me and I didn’t even believe it at first. And yes, I feel very happy and proud. I do think that taking part in contests is important. First of all, a photographer can get some valid appreciation and recognition of his/her work. In my opinion, this is crucial for any creative. We live in the times of social media and sometimes, even if you get 100 comments, saying that your work is amazing, it’s not worth much. But when your work is recognised officially by some authoritative jury, this is when you get self-esteem and strength to keep on creating.

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Is there a female photographer or a type of photography that influenced your work or inspired you?
There are several photographers that influenced my works. The first is Anka Zhuravleva, a conceptual photographer from St. Petersburg, currently living in Portugal. Her work is incredible and I can say that her photos made me turn to conceptual shooting. I was amased by the fact that her photography fairytales were created in the very same city where I lived. I was so close and therefore seemed possible for me as well. Another big inspiration is a female photographer, known as Sparrek. She is from Tallin, Estonia. There’s such depth in every one of her works. And once again, I’m in love with Rodney Smith’s photography. He’s an endless source of inspiration for me as well.

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What are your next plans?
I’m working on several very interesting projects with other visual artists. I’m not publishing anything about them yet, as I really want to collect some more material first. Now I can only say that they will explore human psychology in a way. Or should I say female psychology? As my models are generally young women.

I also want to continue sharing my inspiration and skills with other photographers. I organized my first two-day workshop on creative photography last February. Now, I’m planning to organize a few more and also I’m working on a program for an intensive four-day course in creating concepts with a camera.

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WEBSITE: https://dashapears.com/fine-art
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/DashaPears/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/dashapears.art/

conceptual portraits Dasha Pears Nicole Struppert portrait women in photography
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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