Anya is internationally published and award winning photo artist from Ukraine now based in New York, USA. As a self-taught artist, she gained all her knowledge and inspiration through social media and online photography communities.
She creates fine art surrealistic female portraits, which became her preferable genre and a hallmark of her work. Installations, costumes, and Photoshop manipulation help her to embody her fantasies into a finished piece of art.
She has been featured on many popular online blogs, like BoredPanda, Petapixel, and My Modern Met.
Teaching conceptual photography is also her passion and as a workshop instructor, she has already taught in different countries all around the world.
Get in touch with Anya
- Website: https://anya-anti.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anya_anti_art/
- 500px: https://500px.com/anyaanti
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Key Takeaways
“You can learn all the technical stuff … what matters is what is inside of you, so do what you love, and believe in yourself!”
- Anya is self-taught because when she was starting there was nothing out there. She researched everything by herself – blogs, forums, tutorials. Right now it’s so much information out there on the internet. She used to analyze photographs and what she likes about them
- Conceptual photography is a complex process. Anya always starts with an idea – prepare, try to find a model, outfit, scout locations, build props, rent props or buy props.
- Anya does a lot of practical stuff on the set so she doesn’t have to involve Photoshop that much
- Anya compares her art to movies, where CGI makes it look real and she also makes her artworks look as real as possible
- Anya always tries to tell stories in her shots. The one shot has to tell the whole story. There are no captions to her photographs. She wants the people to think of the story themselves.
- Anya says“Life is short and you gotta do everything you can right now!” Time flies and you have to do most out of it
- Her fav quote is from Ansel Adams – “You don’t shoot a photograph, you make it!”
Featured Resource
Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.
Resources mentioned
- Sign up for Anya’s workshops
- Tool of the trade – Nikon D600
- Fav photographers:
- Rodney Smith – fashion, fine art photography – surrealistic portraits
- Tim Walker – fashion photographer
- Contests in which Anya participated to get exposure and money rewards
- Blogs where your work can get featured
Special thanks to Anya for joining me today. See you next time!
All artworks by Anya Anti, used with permission
