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Anton Alymov
@alymov_art
Digital artist based in Russia
As a kid I used to watch lots of movies and cartoons and I was always amazed by the great visuals of them. My imagination kept working after the movies had finished; I imagined myself exploring those unknown lands or ancient cities and wished that one day I would travel there. I am still a huge movie fan and my work is largely influenced by cinema. One of my favorites are The Lord of The Rings, Indiana Jones, The Son of God, E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial, and Les Intouchables (2011).
"As watching movies triggered my imagination, I felt the need to do something with that. I wanted to do something artistic as well, like creating movies."
So when I was about 14 years old I created my own YouTube channel. I clearly understood that making movies was not really attainable as I needed actors, gear and a crew – I had none of that. But, besides my passion for movie I liked computer games a lot too, and I began to make short films based on their engines – this way I didn’t need actors or gear anymore! The show happened to be a major success, my channel quickly grew to 50,000 followers, then 100,000, then 200,000… Today there are more than 330,000 persons subscribed to it. That invention has had the most significant impact on me becoming an artist. I finally was doing something artistic and in the meantime learned a lot; different kinds of software, the first steps in running a business.
"I plan to continue working on that project in the future, progressing into real short movies; so excited about that!"
While learning, growing and becoming more serious about it, I also started to take photographs. It was just a hobby, but it was another form of artistic expression that I found to be very enjoyable as well. I was mainly focussed on cities; I love the specific atmosphere each city radiates. Each city “knows” millions of stories; many of those stories will never be known nor discovered but they would be worthy to write great books about or to make masterpiece movies. I find that fascinating and try to communicate that sense of undiscovered mystery in my photography.
"I believe that a great cityscape photograph communicates a feeling that something interesting is going to happen. It is real magic."
The atmosphere is important to me when deciding where to travel; whatever destination seems to have an interesting and pleasant atmosphere, I would go. A city with a wonderful ambiance and the greatest cityscape I’ve ever seen so far has to be Paris; the view from the observation deck at the Tour Montparnasse is the best view of the city in my opinion, it’s breathtaking! There are dozens of great possible compositions to capture from there, and the results get especially stunning after the sunset when the city lights turn on. So before deciding where to go I try to find out the atmosphere of a city by researching different stories about the city, listening to local music, and looking through some old paintings.
As my main goal is always to represent not only what I see but rather what I feel about the location, I really want to get to know the story of the city, experience it. In real world our perception is based on many different senses: we can hear sounds and smell scents, we can move in any direction freely. With a still photograph, however, only sight is used and I find that lowers the amount of emotional impact greatly. I always try to compensate this lack of impact with the use of light, colour, composition and retouching.
"I love the natural but yet dramatic look - I try to find the balance, find the those values where the photograph looks natural but still has emotional impact on the viewers."
"Even though concepts, ideas and messages communicated with photography are crucial, bringing them to life is also very challenging."
So a great deal of practical knowledge is needed. In other words, it’s important to know how to achieve the desired effect technically. Being a digital artist helps me to know these techniques and how to use them, and together with my love for history and artworks from the past, I hope to create something unique. 500 years ago artists had to know many special techniques on how to use paints and brushes and it was there only way to express their experiences and feelings. That is exactly what makes every old painting so unique, I believe.
"Today we use the same tools but built into the software like Photoshop and I find that fascinating."
"As I love paintings and history, my work is strongly influenced by the painter Edouard Cortes and the Black and White photographer Jean-Michel Berts."
Also the HDR master Tray Ratcliff. Actually there are many artists who inspire me, and I still discover new artists, which is nice because I get a new rush of inspiration which helps me to evolve and create new content. I would say that my main inspiration has been Serge Ramelli, a french photographer. I discovered his work when I was going through a rather difficult period in my life and that person with his work helped me find the way to follow my dreams and for that I am deeply thankful. I am honoured to have Serge as a friend today.
"I believe having these kind of people close to you, friends, family or simply fellow photographers, is necessary to develop and evolve as a photographer, technically and personally."
It helps to get insight in your work in terms of results, but also in how you work to achieve that result and how you can improve. For me, the most challenging thing was to allow myself to make mistakes and to consider them a learning process. I am very demanding towards my work to the extent that I could be called a perfectionist. So finding a balance between that perfectionism and common sense was the greatest challenge. To find this balance I applied a practical experiment – I printed two versions of the same photo of Paris: the first version took me around 10 minutes to retouch and the second one around two hours (I erased every single car in the background and other objects that to me looked distracting) and showed these photographs to friends and family. Nobody even noticed the difference. This helped to realize that the thoughts that I had and the way I was working, didn’t necessarily result in a better photo. So I was able to find a good balance in invested time and desired outcome by involving others and reflecting upon my approach towards photography and editing.
"Now I only do the things that really make difference in my photos to help communicate ideas and emotions better."
"Though somehow, I also think that the greatest moments in your life, will become one of your best photos."
It’s the energy or profound feeling that you can put into the photo and transmit with the photo, I guess. I captured one of my most amazing moments during my travel in UAE, and this photo happened to be the most successful ever posted by me on Instagram, it even went viral for a couple of days all over the platform. My whole trip was phenomenal. I had never been to the East before and I was amazed by the welcoming culture and the hospitality of locals and by the beauty of the country itself. While visiting one of the greatest tourist attractions – Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi – I was looking for a large pool which was famous among the photographers for its great reflection. That was my last day of the trip and I had a plane to catch in three hours and I still hadn’t found that location. Plus, sunset had already started. It turned out that the location was difficult to reach but the locals helped me find it.
"I was literally sprinting to that pool once I spotted it as the sky was absolutely unbelievable - so red and saturated! I was able to set the tripod, took the photo and 15 seconds after the sunset was over."
"This really shows that we should live the moment and take our chances as they arise."
It doesn’t often happen that you get back to the same country, the same place, and are lucky enough to have the same perfect circumstances. We have to get out of our mind and let ourselves be guided by our good hearts and desires. If I would have been afraid to miss the plane, doubting about asking a local, or simply not believing in the possibility of success, I would never have captured it. This goes for everything in life. There are so many opportunities left behind because our thoughts and doubts stop us from even trying. But very often these are not even true or supported, and also, at the end…
"With or without success, having at least tried it yields more positivity and a better peace of mind than when not trying it at all."
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