1st place
gold star award
Yuri Shalimov
russian federation 
title
Illusion
These days our world is overcomplicated and overloaded with different useless stuff, so I try to be as minimalistic as possible, leaving only the pure naked body in the frame. For me nakedness is one of the most powerful symbols of harmony and openness to the world. What inspires me - is the art of antiquity, time when interconnection between nature and people has not been lost. My work revolves around beauty, grace and power - those three timeless treasures. When I shoot, I make a kind of research for harmony. I search for postures, which are most expressive in terms of emotional and physical state for these very model at the given moment, which leads to the sense of harmony and unity in the final image. In couple shots my aim is to show the interaction of the feminine and the masculine, the ing and the yang.
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about the photographer
I came to professional photography at the age of 30. Apparently in my case it was something like a cure for a middle age crisis. It helped indeed and my life filled with new meaning. For me it was always an axiom that the photograph should be beatiful. At first my criteria of beauty were vague, but the deeper I dived in photography the more certain and clear it became. I was deeply inspired by such photographers as Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Howard Schatz, Klaus Kampert. For me photography is my own way of finding beauty. When the shutter is released several components of a good shot should be in sync: my emotional state, plastic of model and of course light.These days our world is overcomplicated and overloaded with different useless stuff, so I try to be as minimalistic as possible, leaving only the pure naked body in the frame. For me nakedness is one of the most powerful symbols of harmony and openness to the world. What inspires me - is the art of antiquity, time when interconnection between nature and people has not been lost. My work revolves around beauty, grace and power - those three timeless treasures. When I shoot, I make a kind of research for harmony. I search for postures, which are most expressive in terms of emotional and physical state for these very model at the given moment, which leads to the sense of harmony and unity in the final image. In couple shots my aim is to show the interaction of the feminine and the masculine, the ing and the yang.
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