I’ve been interested in photography almost all my life. I remember when I was 4-5 years old my parents had a point and shoot film camera (that I shot a film with last summer). I had no idea how a film camera worked, and I really liked the sound the shutter made so I really liked just pressing the shutter. It’s fair to say that this didn’t make my parents too happy when I did it.
Some years later, I was already in primary school and we had a field trip. I remember my mom gave me that same camera with a film already loaded in it so I could take some photos. When I came back, I hadn’t shot the entire films so, naturally, I couldn’t see my photos yet. At this point I’d only seen developed films with the negative photos on them. What I didn’t know was that to see any photos on it, it had to be developed first so I just opened the back of the camera and to my surprise there were no photos there. That was the moment when I was told that they were gone forever.
Fast forward a few more years and digital photography is already mainstream, and everyone has their first smartphones. In the meantime, I was interested in taking photos and making them look good but that was it. When photography became so easily accessible, I got the idea that I could actually learn about it. I remember I had an iPhone 4 and my parents and me were in the countryside at the Danube, and at sunset I decided I wanted to take some photos of everyone and our surroundings. That is the first memory I have of actually thinking how to get a good shot and moving around, looking for it.
In 2012, I had already been interested in photography for around one and a half years and I wanted to buy my first DSLR. Back then they were too expensive, so my dad helped me out and paid the majority of the price. As you will have guessed, I was very happy about it and I’d bring my Nikon D3100 everywhere with me. I wanted to try every single type of photography out there and I did. Needless to say, 95% of the photos I was taking were nothing special.
Around the same time, I discovered DigitalRevTV on YouTube and I loved the street photos Kai was taking. This was one of the main reasons why I decided I wanted to learn street photography, so I started walking around Sofia a lot.
Then, around 2014 I sort of lost interested in photography, so I didn’t take any photos for just over a year.
In October of 2015 I went to Croatia for an Erasmus+ project and I brought camera with me even though I considered not doing it. That was the trip that sparked my interest in photography again. In the next few years, I kept on taking a lot of photos, got some paid gigs, but mainly concentrated on street photography and sometimes portraits.
In 2016 I graduated high school and I backpacked around Europe for 6 weeks, with my camera, of course. That was another trip that really got me wanting to take more and more photos.
I came back to Sofia, started studying something I hated in uni and photography sort of became a coping mechanism for the first time.
In 2017 I traveled a bit as well and by the end of the year I was big into street photography. I started researching great photographers like Fan Ho, Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Steve McCurry and many more and I was absolutely fascinated by their work. I didn’t exactly know what got me so interested but I just loved it.
In 2018, I kept on traveling and taking a lot of photos and around that time I started developing something of a style. I was already shooting with a Nikon D7000 and a Yongnuo 50mm. I really loved taking photos and I kept on wishing to improve.
At the end of summer that same year, I went to Lithuania for an Erasmus semester and I feel that is really when I could say I became a street photographer. I was living in the country’s third biggest city – Klaipėda and I had a blast. I’d go out and shoot every week and I was learning a lot.
The year after, 2019, I started the 365 challenge which, mixed with some relationship problems got me to drop photography in general for more than half a year. In the first 5 months of the year, I started shooting film for the first time, and I absolutely loved it.
I first picked photography up seriously in the spring of 2020, when the COVID 19 pandemic started so just when I was starting to enjoy it again, I couldn’t do it.
The summer of the same year I went to Austria for an internship, and this is what helped me build up the courage to do it again. Even though, I was living in a tiny town with a population of less than 5000, I still managed to walk around and take photos.
Now, when I’m back in Sofia, and the world is still moving at 50% speed, photography has becoming a coping mechanism again. I make sure I go out and take photos at least once every few days. To be honest, lately I have not felt the same way taking photos, as usually, but I guess that will also pass. One thing is for sure, photography has given me a lot and it’ll always be a part of who I am.
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