We were lucky to catch up with Mary Crnkovic Pilas recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Mary, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on was photographing Ivona Martincic, a talented, multimedia artist, and her artwork. She is best known for her crochet graffiti piece „Love Cracks“ – a crocheted broken heart with the two halves stitched together over a crack in the wall – that became a symbol of hope in Zagreb and all of Croatia after the 2020 earthquake and Covid pandemic.
I saw photos of “Love Cracks” in the media and was moved by it, so I decided to photograph it myself, posted it to Instagram and tagged her. As I photograph in black and white, she was fascinated to see her red and blue heart on a bright ochre wall in black and white. We started messaging each other and at one point I asked her whether I could take some photographs of her with her heart. She agreed and we set a time and date.
Repairs were being done on the wall and the nearby school after the earthquake, so I decided to incorporate these into my photos. I also took some candid photos of passersby interacting with her artwork, damage that had been done to the city as well as the repairs. The photos were well received, so much so that The Other Hundred, a not-for-profit initiative of the Global Institute For Tomorrow, asked if a series of photos of Ivona and her artwork could be included in their book „Healers“, a photo book that celebrated the men, women and children who had helped in healing their communities during the global Covid pandemic. The photos I took of Ivona and her artwork were not only the first photos I had published in a book, but the first significant series of documentary photos I had taken as I usually do candid street photography.
Since then, I have taken many more photos of Ivona and her art and they have both been an enormous source of inspiration for me – her colourful personality and artwork have encouraged me to photograph more in colour and not just black and white, as well as inspired me to delve deeper into the world of documentary photography.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Mary Crnkovic Pilas and I am an Australian-Croatian humanist street and documentary photographer based in Zagreb, Croatia. I am especially drawn to dogs, children, elderly people, quirkiness, traditional customs, street artists and rainy/snowy weather.
I first took up photography when I moved to Zagreb in 1992 as it was, and still is, so very different to Sydney, and when I first visited it was, you could say, exotic. However, I stopped after I had my family and only took photos of my children.
It was the Camino de Santiago that I did in 2016, walking from Porto to Santiago de Compostela, that reopened a world of photography I had forgotten. Walking the streets of Portugal and Spain, I once again felt the energy and the lure of the street, and I still feel it every time I step out my door. I think the Camino de Santiago inspired the themes of my work in that it drew me to more, one could say, “nostalgic” subjects such as traditional elderly people, as most of the Camino Portugues is walked in rural areas and seaside towns that are mostly inhabited by an older population. I think it also inspired the style and themes of my work as there are many places where one feels that time has stopped still and make one feel nostalgic for the past. My photos always reflect a past time or a time that will soon be in the past.
I love street and documentary photography, firstly, because you never know what to expect when doing street and documentary photography – a lady taking a cat on a leash for a walk, a boy diving into a half meter deep fountain, a girl on a window looking at penitentes – everything is possible! Secondly, the only thing you have control over is where to stand and what your camera settings are – everything else is out of your control. Being a bit of a control freak in many areas of my life, I love that I can’t control anything in the street except myself and my camera. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, I love that the street is accessible to everyone – as soon as you walk out your door, you’re on the street – and you don’t need any fancy equipment – a lot of street photographers use their phone.
Without a doubt, Magnum photographers such as Henri Cartier Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Cristina Garcia Rodero, etc have been a huge influence on my work. However, the photographer who has inspired me the most is my favourite photographer, Robert Doisneau – my Instagram handle and website are named after one of his quotes and sums up exactly how I feel about street photography: “The marvels of daily life are so exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.“
In terms of challenges that I have faced, I think that the biggest one that I have overcome but still keep having to overcome is taking photos of people on the street. I am quite an introverted person so photographing random strangers on the street has always been and most probably always will be a big challenge. But I am definitely better at it than I was when I first began.
As for my proudest moment, it happened quite recently – on February 25th, I received first prize in the Urban and Street category at the Xposure Awards in Sharjah, the UAE. Even now, almost a month later, I am still blown away by it.
You can find more of my work on my web page https://themarvelsofdailylife.com/ and Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/the.marvels.of.daily.life/
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My goal is for people to see that ordinary, everyday moments can be magical and worth paying attention to, that there is beauty in the mundane, that everything is photographable and that everyone is interesting and has a story to tell.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I think that something that non-creatives will struggle to understand that although money is important, it is not what drives me to create and to do street and documentary photography. When I undertake a project, I do it purely for the joy of it. If I happen to make money from it, it is a stroke of good luck. Also, being a street photographer, it is almost impossible to go for a walk with me if you are not a street photographer as I am constantly looking for photo opportunities. Or in the words of Annie Leibovitz – “One doesn’t stop seeing. One doesn’t stop framing. It doesn’t turn off and turn on. It’s on all the time.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://themarvelsofdailylife.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.marvels.of.daily.life/
Image Credits
Photo of myself by Ivan Pilas