The Art of Light

ARTIST – Anton Alymov

Anton is a Russian interior and cityscape photographer. His work has been published internationally and his project dedicated to Paris has made it to the short-list of ND Photography Awards 2019. We asked Anton about his artistic perception and his thought process on creating such dramatic images.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED BY MAJOR CITIES – the way cultures, customs, and beliefs get mixed up forming a new string of life. And this fact shapes my perception of cityscape photography as each city “knows” millions of stories and keeps many undiscovered secrets.

I treat cities like living and breathing things and I often call my photographs “a portrait of the city”.

THE MAIN GOAL OF MINE IS to fully represent my emotions on the screen. I allow myself to spend as much time as needed to create a photograph that would create the right emotional impact. But taking control of light is always a real challenge. When I was starting out, I had to find a way to achieve the desired dramatic quality from a technical point of view. It was the time when I started to study the work of Edouard Cortes (French post-impressionist artist – editor’s note) – my favorite cityscape painter to this day. His paintings had something special about them that I could not tell what it was. I started measuring the tonal values of all his paintings and discovered some similarities and patterns. I found out that he used a very unique technique to create shadows – they made his cityscapes “glow”.

Then I had to find a way to apply this knowledge using modern-day technologies. I discovered the work of some great modern artists like Jean-Michel Berts (French photographer – editor’s note) and Serge Ramelli (French photographer – editor’s note) whom I am honored to have as a friend today. Eventually, I was able to come up with a workflow that now allows me to capture exactly what I feel while walking the streets of cities.