SVETLANA POZHARSKAYA: MASTER OF SPIRAL PHOTO

Svetlana Pozharskaya has always been attracted to art, and to art, not large-scale and official, but to her own, personal, sincere. As a child, she literally fell in love with photography, and for half a century this love does not leave her. And during this time, Svetlana herself became one of the best photographers in Russia and Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation.
Pozharskaya was born in 1951. The Soviet era was, perhaps, not the best time for the development of its own photographic style – control, pressure and numerous requirements could kill at the root all the desire to develop. But not from Svetlana.
Here’s how she herself writes about her work: “I appreciate the understatement in photos most of all, allowing the viewer to participate, to empathize with what she saw. Then the photo from the imprint of life stopped in time turns into another reality, as if coming alive again in the sensory and spiritual perception of the viewer. ”
For more than 25 years, Svetlana has worked as a leading specialist in the photo art department of the State Russian House of Folk Art.
Despite the sadly official name, it was a very creative place where Svetlana managed not only to create a lot of beautiful photos, but also to become a real professional, a master of her craft.
During the years of creativity, she published more than a hundred books and articles, held 19 solo exhibitions, became executive secretary of the Union of Photo Artists of Russia and curated children’s and youth photography in it.
But she herself does not characterize a real photo artist by formal achievements: “It seems to me that a photo artist is distinguished not so much by virtuosity in technical wisdom of photography, that is, the ability to feel and set light, to create original photocomposition, using various chemical and computer manipulations to bring any picture to artistic perfection (all this is rather the distinctive features of an artisan), how much the ability at a high technical level to express in photographic language those thoughts feelings are understood and spiritual response in others. When the photo becomes a kind of tuning fork between the author and the viewer. It does not matter in this case, how many photo-masterpieces were made by the master, one or several dozen. ”
Svetlana’s photos are diverse: portraits, still lifes, landscapes and much more. But all these pictures are united, first of all, by the sincerity of the author. Even when Svetlana was making “photo delays” (combining photos and real objects), there was no falsehood in them, but only a crafty game.
And this sincerity is captivating. Plots in this case can be simple or complex – this is absolutely unimportant. Perhaps the whole point is that Svetlana does not only part with her camera all her life, but also writes poetry? No less sincere and lyrical than her photos.
“Today, every frame requires a lot of internal training from me. Only when the triangle “feeling – thought – reality” “closes”, I press the trigger of the camera. This moment is the moment of truth that I am trying to catch and stop. ”