There are stories within Cristina Velina’s fine art photography. Her enchanting work takes you on a journey into Cristina’s ideas and creativity. Her photographs on her website page, ‘Ode to the Narcissus’, are artistic portraits that are beautifully realised with Cristina as the model, bathed in colour, flowers, and pale background textures. The theme of each photo is encapsulated by Cristina’s elegant posing and creative choices.
Besides portraits scenery and animals, her work with flowers and macro wildlife are absorbing in their compositions and are bursting with colour. There are some beautifully designed studio, Still Life, Floral images there too.
The concepts that she has for her projects, ‘Daisy May’, ‘Moments of Being’, and ‘In Motion’ are original and refreshing. It is here is the sense of story and distinct vision; there is a definite visual poetry to Cristina’s work.
You can purchase her work via her website: https://www.cristinavelinaphotography.net/fineart/shop
You can check out her portfolio and contact her here:
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Please talk about yourself, where you are from where you grew up, where you live now……
I’m a photographer and artist based in Romania. I was born in a small mountain town and was raised there by my grandparents until I was 6 years old, after which my parents took me to live with them in Bucharest. I currently live in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
How does your ideas and inspiration for your work formulate? Where do you get your ideas from?
Usually, I get my ideas and inspiration quite easily, as I can be inspired by so many things. Starting with my life experiences, my visions, the exploration of Self from a mental, emotional and spiritual perspective and also encompassing elements from nature, music or other inspiring people or pieces of art.
How would describe your work to somebody who for any reason, could not see it?
From my point of view I perceive my works to be quite vibrant with a painterly touch, with images that appeal to both the eye and the soul with beautiful, rich colors, tones and textures.
What post processing tools do you use? Can you describe your post processing workflow for one of your images?
I like to work with Lightroom and Photoshop. First I import my set of images in Lightroom, where I make the selection and the basic editing. From Lightroom I open the images in Photoshop to get more creative or to just add a final touch to the images.
Which photographers and or artists inspire you?
There are so many artists and photographers I find inspiring! But to name a few: Salvador Dali, Yayoi Kusama, Kristy Mitchel, Miss Aniela, Annie Leibovitz, Oleg Dou, Michael Oswald, Oleg Oprisco, Flora Borsi, Sarah Illenberger, Andy Goldsworthy, and Adam Martinakis.
What was it that inspired you to become a photographer?
My earliest desire to be a photographer was caused by an astonishing scene I witnessed as a child during a visit to my grandparents, in one of the spring holidays. A unique landscape where elements of Winter and Spring seemed to merge and create in my mind a sort of “living” painting, which I couldn’t preserve but rather I kept in my heart and mind. The desire to preserve that beautiful scene, along with the passing of years has brought in me a very strong will to create images with the help of a photo camera.
What are your biggest strengths and weakness as a photographer?
I believe my biggest strength as a photographer and artist is definitely my emotional sensitivity. And my biggest weakness I think is my relationship with the unknown, which slows down the process of “letting go” to allow myself to delve deeper into and expanding my creative comfort zone.
Do you have a favourite project of yours, and if so why?
Every project I have is special to me in its own unique way. I feel that I learn, I experience, I live, and I grow with every image I create.
But currently, I am working quite intensively on my latest floral project, which I call “Ice and Flowers”. This series of images had a somewhat slow start 3 years ago but it has become more and more important to me since its inception as I learned and grew with it. I have always been captured by the beauty of flowers, but since I’ve started to grow my own flowers, especially for this project, they captured me as individually as well. As strange as it sounds, I strongly believe that flowers too are living beings with a soul.
Cristina Velina