Lukasz Kitlinski is a fashion photographer from North-East London and kindly agreed to give us an insight into his work and complete a featured photographer interview for Urbanity Chic. Read the full interview below to discover who inspires him, how he creates his unique photographic style and what he does to relax when away from the camera.
Q: What makes a good photographer in your opinion?
Generally the most important aspects of photography are the target itself, lighting, and the choice of apparatus to be used.
Sometimes its easy to make things too complicated by constraining yourself to some aspects of photography such as assuming that medium format cameras are used for fashion and photographs shouldn’t be taken without a large format camera, for example.
Q: How did you get into professional photography?
Actually, I’ve always never seen myself as a professional photographer but more as someone whom loves photography and art. I’ve seen many professionals who cannot take pictures.
Q: What do you enjoy most photographing?
I enjoy photographing people the most.
Q:Who inspires you?
My inspiration is the photographer Helmut Newton. I think he could represent someone and their personality in an instant. Another person with a similar talent is the film director Krzysztof Kieslowski. Although he wasn’t a photographer as such he understood how to capture emotion, personality and character in film.
Q: Which modern day fashion designers or fashion icons do you look up to?
Personally I like Ben Sherman’s style with regard to fashion design .
Q: Do you prefer using film cameras or digital?
Digital photography is far more convenient but sometimes has a lack of heart and seems very two dimensional. I used to only use film cameras and still I’ll always have a film camera to hand. You can achieve a depth of field, colours, shades of gray with film but its impossible to achieve the same effect with digital photography.
Q: Do you prefer to shoot on location or in the studio?
Location shoots have their disadvantages such as less control of light. In the studio we have full control of the light and can sometimes be more creative.
Q: Do you have a specific style of photography that makes you unique?
My style is to use different kinds of filters. I always try to experiment with exposure and gentle lighting.
Q: Do you have a favourite photograph?
It is hard to say what my favourite photograph is. I think much of it depends on taste. I feel my best pictures are generally taken with my Hasselblad Xpan. It has an unusual film size (24 x 65 film) but this dimension gives unusual perspectives.
Q: Who is your favourite photographer?
Helmut Newton
Q: Is there anybody you would like to work with (either behind or in front of the camera)?
I’d really like to work with Playboy and Vogue.
Q: What does fashion mean to you?
Someone with a sense of fashion has a control of their lifestyle and can exude their character with what they wear and their poise.
Q: What do you do to relax?
I listen to music.
Q: What songs are on your ipod at the moment?
Mercyful Fate “Don’t break the Oath”
Sixx AM “The Heroin Diaries”
Tony Iommi “Iommi”
Jan Garbarek “In Praise of Dreams”
Q: Do you have interesting hobbies?
I collect art and records.
Q: If you could give a little piece of advice for aspiring photographers what would it be?
I think a beginner should first study the history of art and then look into the history of photography itself in more detail such as famous photographers’ style and what different apparatus are capable of doing (such as polaroid, film vs. digital, large format, the medium format rangefinder, etc.).
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to let our readers know about?
Photography will always be part of my life. You can disregard money or contracts I will always love taking photographs.
Editor’s Note: Lukasz has a unique and very artistic style that exudes his personality and creative flair in each photograph. We hope that Lukasz continues to have the opportunity to showcase his talent in the future.
If you’d like to see more of Lukasz’s work or contact him directly visit his website: http://www.imperfectgallery.eu/