< INTRO
The way I live is like a spark, or an attempt to be a spark in everything I do. I understand that this can be a self-destructive tendency to some extent, but I WANT to be a spark in different aspects of life, creating multiple sparks at once, and from afar it would look like a bonfire.
L.M: You've described a spark.
Good metaphor. So, the answer to your question is that I'm not seeking fulfillment in just one thing, but all my endeavors are somehow connected to creative processes.
L.M: I don't know if you've noticed, but I didn't ask a question.
INTRO >
A conversation with Jurij Treskow in free interpretation.
He allowed it.
We met at the location where the exhibition fatal 2 was supposed to take place to talk about it, about him, about them, about all these butts on the posters, but the furniture hadn't been delivered yet, so we went to sit in another trendy place. We sat across from each other. There was a fire burning behind me. Behind him, the door to the toilet was open. You couldn't make it up.
I was dressed inappropriately for the weather, so I thought I would quickly ask a couple of questions about sex with models, but everything didn't go according to my plan and I got cold. And Jurij didn't warm me up later, even though I also looked like a model. I asked questions diligently with my mouth full, and Jurij swallowed and answered.
L.M: - If I ask you "how did you become a photographer", will you answer with a question (no wonder they called you Esya and Zhurish): how did you become a journalist? Then I will answer you: you asked for it, so I pretend. And it doesn't mean that anyone will believe me and recognize my right to be one. And you are already organizing your second exhibition, so you rightfully are a photographer to people.
J.T.: From my childhood, I remember the rare at that time, endless amount of film rolls that my grandfather took. The endless amount of developed rolls equaled a billion boxes of black and white photographs that I still love to look at. Could this be the beginning of the reason?
The continuation is geographically located in Germany, and my first success, when my project was singled out as exemplary during an art lesson on the topic of "photography". This was the moment of realizing that I could be better than others in something, and it depended not on knowledge but on skills.
The third part of the reason, in the best traditions of life paths, is chance. My friend, who worked in the modeling agency "Elephant" in Brest, suggested taking pictures of girls. "Taking pictures" is a very appropriate word for that stage. Honestly, it was shooting with the aim of getting to know the girls.
L.M: - Did you have a camera?
J.T.: No, but I bought it from a friend. It actually broke down after 2 weeks.
L.M: I didn't ask how. I just thought that someone sat on it.
J.T.: I continued shooting. I had a stockpile of ideas inside, which I was now implementing. I took about 3,000 shots per shoot, and I liked almost everything. I showed these shots at my lectures to relax people and show them that everything is very simple at first.
L.M: - "Bad," you meant to say.
J.T.: It's amazing that I didn't notice how I became so passionate about photography, and my acquaintances with girls became secondary. The process fascinated me. To come up with, implement, share, and get feedback. The desire to continue was largely based on the fact that I had ambitions, and in every new shoot, I wanted to achieve cool results. This is the engine that is difficult to stop.
In my particular case, I prefer the process more. It's the deepest meditation I can be in. I take a camera and can focus on the object, abstracting myself from myself, from Jurij Treskow.
[ Sorry, hello ] Jurij is talking on the phone.
J.T.: Yes, it's me.
J.T.: Oh, sorry, I overheard the beginning of the conversation. Ok, who's calling? Ah, got it, I'm listening.
L.M: 15 seconds have passed.
J.T.: Sorry about that. Yes, yes, goodbye.
The ability to focus on a single object is something that many meditations teach, and during a shoot, whether it's an hour or several hours, it's an amazing feeling when you disconnect from yourself, not because you're uncomfortable with yourself, but because you feel light and weightless. You don't even realize the passage of time, it's both fast and long, and this feeling resonates throughout your whole body. And nothing else, except for photography, gives me this feeling.
That's how my addiction to the process, rather than the results, formed.
L.M: It's strange, of course, to hear that someone not only doesn't get stressed at work, but the opposite. To some, it may even seem unprofessional. By the way, do you ever get satisfied with the result to the point of being emotional? Or is photography just something you do for your own pleasure?
J.T.: When I select the material, which, for the sake of objectivity, does not happen immediately, the result covers me with a second wave of emotions, similar to surprise, because during the process, I never fixate on what I'm shooting. Surprise can be different. Sometimes you think you had a super cool shoot, but the shots you see later when you've cooled off look bland.
L.M: And what do you do?
J.T.: When I was young, I used to get upset.
L.M: Have you ever thought that one day you would take your best shot and there would be no point in shooting anymore? No, you wouldn't say that because for you, it's a meditative process first and foremost, and the result is not even in second place. Sorry, I answered for you.
L.M: Why do you insist on black and white?
J.T.: I'm not insisting. The camera I use gives me a better and more expressive result in black and white than in color.
L.M: But why don't you get a better camera to take your work to the next level?
J.T.: Everything has its time.
L.M: I'll count "everything has its time" as your answer.
J.T.: There's a worn-out phrase that, of course, is not applicable to me.
L.M: And you're still going to say it?
J.T.: Yes. People who shoot in black and white capture a person's soul. In my case, it means that there's nothing extra in the frame.
L.M: - I see, you are for "pure" art.
L.M: Before this question, I took the biggest sip from my glass. For tactfulness.
L.M: "I'm sure there are many different photos in the source files because the girls come in different shapes, sizes, and even, as you claim, with different complexes. But in the end result, it all looks almost the same. How come?"
J.T.: "As strange as it may sound, when photographing different girls, I'm not trying to reflect THEIR reality, but simply using them to create an image from MY fantasy world."
L.M: "Yura, it's noticeable. And my question is: why do you make different levels of sexiness the same? Why don't you want to broaden the boundaries of sexuality wider than just endless legs of models, and show that they are sexy not only in your signature 'flattering' angle, but also where there are folds?"
J.T.: "I can do that, but people come to me for my photos. Enough photographers are taking photos of folds in 2018. And when people come to me, I feel responsible for the results they expect. I understand what you're saying, that sexuality is not just in these angles and poses, which are often very contrived and not found in real life, but we come together to fantasize."
During the shoot, you can take photos from below, above, and to the left, but during the selection process, when no one is sitting behind me and pointing at the screen, I repeatedly choose these deliberately sexy shots because I really like them and hardly anyone else.
L.M: "You don't have to continue, I'll count that as 'I like it.' That's the most important thing."
J.T.: "My entire history with photography is a state of mindfulness. Being in the moment, living life. It's as exciting or just as wonderful as suddenly noticing something nearby in the real world. How the light falls, how the water shimmers, how a love drama unfolds on the corner of the street. I often stop myself to observe what's happening. It becomes joyful for yourself that you notice and feel it, and that it happens in life in general. I never photograph anything like this, and later I may not even remember what I saw, but I experience the emotion from beginning to end. And it's always real-life moments, not posing things. It's on this contrast with the poses in my photos that I like to live."
L.M: - Have feminists ever written to you? Because I think they have a reason to.
J.T.: No.
L.M: - No?
J.T.: No.
I don't turn a woman into a sexual object. I don't turn her into a butt, I don't turn her into legs, I don't turn her into boobs.
L.M: - What do you do then?
J.T.: What I like.
L.M: - But you yourself said that you don't personalize the person, in your case, women, and that's a problem because women should be viewed as individuals if you live in the 21st century.
J.T.: I open any of my pictures. Look, for me, this is Z. Or what was her name? Yes, Z.
L.M: - Feminists should definitely write to you.
J.T.:For me, this is Z, who came so shy, looking like a little mouse, with her worries about the day and three years of marriage, and I'm photographing her like this.
L.M: Shows a goddess-like girl with a snake-like gaze.
L.M: - Touching story, but why doesn't anyone else know about it?
J.T.: It's not important to me.
L.M: - Don't you want to convey your message to the masses? I just looked at Z with new eyes, and now this photo won't look like the others.
J.T.: But that's not my business.
L.M: - What? You're the creator of this wonder, so it is your business! You'll have an exhibition, posters after posters of goddesses, and they'll all look like goddesses of the same level, as if they all took first place in the goddess championship, but you, knowing that they all started from different positions, don't you want to indicate that somehow? It would say a lot about your talent in equalizing inequalities.
J.T.: Everything has its time.
L.M: - Doesn't count. If I didn't want to delve into your art myself, I would have just scrolled through your work, now they're just being scrolled through, like fast food on the way to work, I would have thought you were photographing the same thing over and over again. I don't see this story of a mouse turning into a swan, and I like those kinds of stories.
J.T.: Actually, what I'm getting at is that there will be backstories. But everything has its time.
L.M: - Now I'll count it.
L.M: - I think the question of "is there a muse" is inappropriate.
J.T.: Why?
L.M: - Because you photograph goddesses and they might get angry.
J.T.: Well then, don't ask. How is your interview going anyway?
L.M: - I'm not sure. I hope you're having a good time and won't regret it.
J.T.: All muses can be divided into two types, in my opinion. Sometimes you have fantasized about her, and suddenly you meet her and she is exactly as you imagined. And you think: wow! I can't believe it! Something like this really exists. And then there is the second option. You couldn't even imagine it.
L.M: - I thought you would say something else. That a muse is when you want to photograph a smile.
L.M: - Have model's mothers, fathers, or boyfriends ever written to you? Maybe someone threatened you?
J.T.: Yes.
L.M: - Very interesting! Tell me! I was thinking of not asking, because if feminists didn't write, then what could boys write, except for words of gratitude? It's good that I asked.
J.T.: It was related to the period when I was shooting in a large apartment on Leninsky Prospekt, with high ceilings, and where I also did model tests for a modeling agency. One of the girls came to me, a super sexy type, as if she was always wet, according to my feelings. According to my feelings of eight years ago.
During the shoot, we started talking and she told me a romantic and beautiful story about seeing her boyfriend off to the army. And at some point, I realized that for some reason she was shooting nude.
I'm very tactful. I never make any comments about the model and always have a very delicate sense of what can be asked for and what cannot. I almost never ask someone to undress and I don't have a command to "take off your bra". It happens naturally, as if it's obvious. I feel by inertia that the girl is ready for it, and when she herself starts to get undressed - I just document it.
At that time it wasn't about artistry, I just wanted to look. The process was cool, but the result was terrible. Vulgar trash.
Several years have passed and...
L.M: - Wait, is this the end of the story about the naked girl in the apartment on Leninsky Prospekt???
J.T.: I am answering your question about threats.
L.M: That's interesting too.
J.T.: Nothing happened. I didn't have the courage.
And then a few years pass, I'm in Brest. The phone rings. I answer. This girl asks me why I posted her photo online. I understand that she's saying this at gunpoint, but still trying to understand what photo she's talking about and what her claims are against me. Then a man intercepts the phone, I don't know if it's the one who served in the army, and starts talking:
He says: Hey, where are you?
I say: In Brest.
He says: You're screwed!
I hang up. I don't know what to say! I'm in such a situation for the first time.
He calls back.
He says: delete the photos.
I say: from where?
He says: from your computer.
I say: okay, I'll delete them now.
He says: and throw away the disk with them.
I say: okay.
He says: I'll come and check.
I say: and where are you?
He says: in Moscow.
Anyway, I breathed a sigh of relief and that story ended.
And a few years later, that girl wrote with apologies.
Another girl also wrote, but reasonably. She asked why we shot her like that and why she unexpectedly appeared naked. She asked to delete it.
L.M: This characterizes you as a good photographer who can induce an affective state. Girls can control themselves with bad photographers. Trust me.
J.T.: Female attention is still very secondary for me. I notice this sharply in Moscow, against the background of my acquaintances who eagerly watch my success with women, since I often hang out with various beautiful faces, and it comes easily to me. And I don't even think about it.
L.M: And how do you explain such a reaction?
J.T.: Envy. Male envy.
L.M: No, I'm talking about your success with women. Why do beautiful women walk around with you? In gratitude for their suddenly discovered and immortalized goddess in a photo?
J.T.: It happens, but there are many girls I talk to whom I didn't shoot and don't plan to, and they still find me fascinating.
L.M: Well, you're not ugly.
L.M: What happens after the photoshoot? How does the awkward moment of saying goodbye happen? Handshakes? Mutual slaps on the butt? Do the girls run away while you're in the bathroom? Or do you not even realize how they just posed nude while they're collecting their clothes off the floor?
J.T.: Most of the time, I run away myself. But that's now. Earlier, especially at the beginning of my career, especially in Paris, I fell in love at every photoshoot. Sometimes there were three in a day and then I fell in love three times a day, and tried to continue almost every acquaintance, until I realized that it's not possible to fall in love to the point of exhaustion.
L.M: If you're interested, I prepared questions and even came up with answers, and in principle, I already made conclusions, so here's one that might not be pleasant: your art is communication. I would rate your talent as a photographer lower. Am I right?
J.T.: Yes.
L.M: It's very pleasant to interview you.
J.T.: I wouldn't photograph anyone at all. For me, communication is much more important, but it's impossible to invite a supermodel, or anyone else for that matter, to spend suddenly two-three hours with you. It would mean to waste their time.
J.T.: When guys choose between ass or boobs - I'm like, come on! In real life, it's not idealism that turns me on, you know?
L.M: No, because, Yuri, you propagate perfection.
J.T.: But it doesn't interest me!
L.M: Fuck! Why don't you tell your audience of men about this? One of them, especially a believer in the goddesses you create, demanded that my real girlfriend, who is 160 cm tall, be like the ones in your pictures, where the girls have endless legs! And my friends who have normal legs and waists are getting complexes and suffering! And you, it turns out, believe in the soul.
L.M: You know what? You're a monster. We finished the interview, now I will be brought a chocolate dessert, and I will eat it, as always, but without any remorse.