Ekaterina Shafieva: Dancing with Loneliness

My name is Ekaterina Shafievа.

I live in Russia. I'm 41 years old.

I love taking portraits of women. I am interested in women in any of their manifestations: as a person, as an expectant mother, as a mother with a child, as a businesswoman. I sincerely believe that women are beautiful in love incarnation and I always fall in love with my heroines.

I came to photography after the birth of my second child. My son. My son changed my life vector. I realized that I cannot and do not want to live as before. My journey to myself has begun. The path of self-knowledge, the path of development, gaining freedom, conquering fears and mastering a new profession.

It's amazing! I am still shocked by my determination. I have worked in the banking sector all my life. My banking experience is about 15 years. Before my son was born, I thought that this was my profession for life, to the end. And then I suddenly realize that I can't bear to be in banking anymore. I feel lost, unfree, like I'm not breathing. I'm turning into my shadow. I began to look for a way out, and found it in my work. I accidentally came across an advertisement for admission to photography courses. As it turned out, accidents are not accidental!

I was extremely unsure of myself, I was afraid to take out a loan to study photography, I was afraid that I would not be able to, that I would quit. It seemed like my fears would eat me up. I cried a whole lake of tears. And yet I went to take a photography course. I remember in the first lesson we set goals. I was writing and my hand was shaking. I wrote: I want to leave the bank for photography. I wrote and I was afraid to believe it myself. After 1.5 years, I quit the bank. She became a photographer and blogger.

My Instagram page is @Shafieva.kate

I am constantly learning. It is important for me to develop as a person - spiritually, and as a photographer, a creator - in the profession. I am very happy that I took this step then. Photography helped me to know myself. Thanks to photography, I began to love people and stopped being afraid of the world of life. I started traveling: Baikal, Altai, Dagestan, Rome - wonderful places, wonderful people.

I like helping people. For someone, I created a creative visual, a stylish avatar, posters for a website or brand, for someone I captured important moments of a relationship. I also like to shoot stories of women, portraits of women about feelings. For example, like this shoot about loneliness. She was born out of my experiences. An image came to me, visions, about a girl. They formed the plot. The theme of loneliness. At first, I wanted to film the story of the breakup of a relationship. He's gone, his cigarette is still smoking, she's sitting/lying on the floor, inhaling the smell of his jacket... But then the topic of human loneliness turned out to be closer to me.

After all, even in a relationship you can feel lonely. I think this is very clear to women. When you are not alone, you have a family, a job, a lot of acquaintances, but there are periods when you are closed from everyone and feel your detachment and your deep loneliness. That's how this story was born. For the shoot, I chose a girl who responded to me internally. It turned out to be a story close to her.

We shot in one go. I turned on the music by composer Zimmer. It was wonderful. We were almost all crying. We were so touched by this topic. It was filmed for only 2 hours. I had such vivid emotions after the shooting. I was happy. I felt that everything worked out in the best way. I managed to show real feelings and states through creativity. Photography heals even our condition, our psyche. Creativity heals.

It is the idea, the idea, that seems to me the most difficult and decisive in the profession. You can know the camera settings, the features of light, color, composition, but without an idea, without your vision and your feelings, everything will lose its meaning. Feelings and thoughts are the basis of art.

For those who are at the beginning of their journey into photography, I want to wish you to study and practice a lot. And it is very important to listen to yourself. To look for your vision. Present your paintings, visions, and shooting details. Don't be inspired by the work of other photographers. Look for inspiration in movies, books, paintings, music videos, and in life. The main key is inside you.

You can find my work on Instagram at @shafieva.ph.

Credits:

Photo: Ekaterina Shafieva @shafieva.ph

Model: Maria Vahlova @vahllova

Assistant: Ksenia Prasko @valerivnxu