We recently connected with Tatiana Sitnik and have shared our conversation below.

Tatiana, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I would probably go with the biggest one so far, which is moving across the world and starting my life over. Growing up in Russia the idea of being part of the movie business was something out of another realm. Unthinkable. Maybe every girl mentioned, she wanted to be an actress at some point, that would be about it. When I first mentioned I wanted to be a camera person, no one even heard what I was saying. When I said I am going to Hollywood, yay, naturally no one took it seriously. I think it was the day I was actually leaving (forever) it suddenly hit everyone, including me. Back then I didn’t know what exactly it would mean, leaving home and everyone behind, having to find a way to leave my life alone and far from people I love. I thought that somehow we would all find a way to live together somewhere. Happily ever after, of course, because anything less is not acceptable. I didn’t know that choosing myself over my family and friends would be an ongoing heartbreaking part of my journey that still stands to this day. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all tears all the time. I was able to build pretty wonderful life here, by the beach, being lucky enough to do what I love, both photography and cinematography. But I am not going to sugarcoat it, it’s been a journey full of obstacles, pain and loss to get to the first steps of becoming a successful freelancer. And so far all the experience turned out to be pretty fulfilling, the good, the bad, the crazy. I am in the process of building and being responsible for my own happiness and it’s a very liberating feeling. I love it. And It will come to me how to live my life apart from people I love, but left behind, while thriving and making my peace with the heartbreak.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I blame Lord of the Rings trilogy for everything. Growing up I was way into fictional world of elves and hobbits rather than the real world, which was dull and boring and full of dull and boring problems. Like paperwork. Anyway, I was too young to see CGI in the battle for Gondor, for me it was a very real magic that someone brought to life. If that was possible, anything was possible. For me The Hobbit was the point when I really got into visual effects and everything related to it. The creation of Smaug fascinated me, the entire process of it. When i learned that some scenes took up to 18 month to create in post production it completely blew my mind.

I started doing photography during my last few years of high school, when my family was really pushing me to pursue journalism, because that seemed to be way more substantial with proper education. But instead of writing articles, I spent hours in Photoshop, then Premiere, then AfterEffects. And watching, talking, obsessing with movies. So for me the zone of interest was very clear, I just didn’t know how to marry those two, photography and fantasy worlds, together. Until one day I had this epiphany of something I called “Video Art”, because once again even thinking of the word “filmmaking” was preposterous. I just wanted to turn my photography into stories, and stories into moving pictures. So I started experimenting with lighting, shooting small and abstract videos, that I turned into a very low budget fashion films. The quality was questionable, but the vision was there.

During a very short time at film school I was explained how to turn my vision into stories. It wasn’t easy, because I’d still think like a photographer; in pictures, not in words. But you show, don’t tell, right? So the first short film I made, called “Burn” was silent, but very emotional, with poetry in a form of a Voice Over. We didn’t need to speak, I emphasized everything I wanted to tell through tears and neon lights. I was okay with lack of clarity and abstraction of it all, the feeling that crawls under you skin was there. The ability to express myself through the art, the film art, was overwhelming, almost euphoric. From that moment I knew exactly what I wanted to do and there was no plan B.

Nature has always been the source of inspiration for me. Our planet is beautiful and has everything we need to get inspired, the colors, the texture, the light. Artificial light has also been a great point of interest of mine as I can manipulate it, shape it, make it whatever I want it to be. When I blend those two together, I create this surreal world where fantasy meets real, natural intertwines with unnatural, imagination shapes the existence and it all comes together in a form of magical realism. Something that I consider to be my true genre in both film and photography.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Stop judging each other so much. Art can be a powerful instrument to express anger, grief, and pain. But I don’t believe it should be used to spread hate, prejudice and divide us further. True art is pure, it exists beyond politics and egos. Art unites us, empowers and liberates us, it’s a tool to channel all the inner and outer chaos we have to go through and make something beautiful out of it. Magic comes from our hearts, so we have to open them up and support each other.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The image doesn’t have to be clear. Perfectly polished picture with flat expression will do nothing for your audience. People won’t see all the technical nuances, but they will see the story your eyes have to tell. Even if it’s a little out of focus, or the light is not bounced in a perfect way. Emotion is everything, and it lies not only within your subject, but within every aspect of your picture. We can find it in the flares, blurs, random rays of light coming from God knows where, but we’re going with it.

I want to clarify that in no way I am trying to undermine years of hard learning from trial and error that winded up giving us these special skills. Skill is what makes us professionals and to have it is priceless. I think the point I’m trying to make is the obsession with technical imperfections might often blind us to see the very core of our project and what makes it unique.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tatianasitnik.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tatstnk/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWUH8Cj2QXs

Image Credits
All pictures were taken by me.