Tadas Kazakevičius
Tadas, can you introduce yourself, where are you based? What moments in your life led you to first pick a camera?
I am documentary and portrait photographer based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Though I lived in UK for five years. That’s where I found photography and built my passion for my own country’s themes.
Now for the photography, it came to me quite late, I was around 24 at that time and until then photography was just part of media. But somehow it blew like a fuse, I could not believe how I suddenly became attracted to it. Seeing images that have depth of field, seeing simple things appear so amazingly. But I always think, that I was “born” when I got my first medium format film camera. Suddenly I understood - I am very passionate about telling stories, I am amazed at the opportunity to tell the story of a human.
You mention that you felt like you were born when you began to use a medium format camera, what about this camera lends itself to your process? What is the feeling that you get when you fire the shutter?
It is the process and the pace of using the analog process that makes the whole experience of taking a portrait some sort of ritual. You do not see the result, you wait for it and hope it will be ok. You grow some sort of relation to the vision of the image you have in your mind. I believe it’s not the actual result of the image to be visually analogue but the actual anticipation itself. I sometimes say that this moment when you get the film back from the lab is like a Christmas morning. You see if you were “good or bad” and the images that lived in your head came out to your standard.
I sometimes still think about how many steps in analogue process need to be correct for a photo to come out. The shutter needs to work right way, the magazine needs to have no leaks. You need to put the film in correctly, develop it correctly… etc. So many moments that you can ruin it. But then… it comes out and sometimes it is magical:)
I do not even talk how beautiful everything looks while you look through the waist level finder
Often people experience some level of fear when approaching people they would like to photograph. Those within your photographs look as though they trust your presence. In some cases it seems they even are able to appear as if you aren’t there.
How do you establish trust with those you photograph? What advice would you give to photographers who feel uneasy approaching people?
To be honest, every time I am scared to approach a person. But funny enough it happens just once in a day. Once you make your first “contact” of the day, those that follow are much easier. It feels like you “break the ice”.
But generally, I tend to spend a lot of time with my subjects, we talk a lot, I try to find something we can share. Sometimes it even becomes my analog camera, or we talk about simple daily things. Eventually people start to get to know you. But sometimes you need to repeat it. And it gets better with practice.
But the main thing - if you express your interest with passion people will pick up on this and become interested in taking part. It’s this idea that opens the door. If you show passion openly and enthusiastically, it tends to mesmerize everyone. It’s wonderful to be passionate about what you create.
What intrigues you about people? Why do you find them fascinating to photograph? Does photographing people help you learn about yourself?
Very often there are small simple things that somehow attract me to the people I photograph. Sometimes it’s a perfect features of someone you photograph, visually, sometimes it’s their story that intrigues me. It depends.
When it comes to your projects, How has imagery allowed you to share the stories of others? How do you determine what to include in a story in order to share the perspective of those who told the story to you?
It changes by the series. Sometimes it’s just a simple quote next to a portrait, sometimes - nothing at all, just a portrait with their eyes closed. I believe, it’s the process and doing the actual work that eventually helps you to answer these questions. But sometimes it comes so easy and sometimes not so much. But then, sometimes you need to throw things away, if it looks like it’s not working. Everything needs to be 100 percent what you do. It needs to be true to yourself. You need to believe it to make people believe in it too.
When you edit your images, what about an image makes you include it in the final selection? What about an image makes you discard it?
There are two things. The feel and the look. But then, if it’s a story you put together, it’s not just that. It’s how it works with other images as well. It’s often very hard to do it properly but I let myself judge it by heart. Either you know and feel it either you don’t. I was never taught how to do these things so I let my heart and mind choose the right things. Sometimes I discuss it with people whose opinion I respect just to be sure. But it’s very personal. You need to feel it.
