Insight #13: Michal Pudelka

Avoiding clichés, spitting on the gutless standards of those who believe commercial is the way to make it, loving but finely mocking his roots. Caring about a mismance, the difference, even if it’s a really small one. Even if it’s in a rowdy, nonsensical and colorful crowd or in plastic, paralyzed gray one. We’re talking about Michal Pudelka. The harmony of his pictures locks up a sornion, sneaky smile; a subtle provocation, a story going on. A tale that is modern, but with some warmth, explosive but without deformations.

How did your love for beauty and fashion develop? All at once or stage by stage?

I think it all started when I was a little boy, I had only girl cousins and we always played with Barbie dolls. Since I was seven years old I wanted to be a fashion designer. But when I came to Paris to study, in my foundation year I felt in love with photography.

Was it hard choosing art and photography as a way of living, in a city like Bratislava? Anyway, you seem really connected with some kind of north-east european beauty. What about the place you were born in influenced you the most?

It was and is not really hard, it doesn’t matter where I live, since I still work for various magazines around the world. Of course, I’m really connected with eastern Europe – it really left some traces on me, growing up in the post communistic country where everything looks so cold and kind of impersonal.

Did moving to Paris changed your perspectives about art? Or was it just a formal change, to escape some rigid schemes of your home country? I mean, maybe your ideas and talent were there anyway, before moving out.

To be completely honest my moving to Paris didn’t change anything in me or about me. Yes, I wanted to escape from the country where people are still so close-minded. Even in art or photography, there is some commercial style that is main and if you don’t do that, you can’t really become known. That’s why I’m working only for magazines from other countries around the globe.

Your models seem to be really provocative and self-confident, under their (fake?) naive appereance. How do you manage to get that? And also, how playing with colours (which you do a lot) help you to do underline girls’ beauty, mood, personalities?

Every shoot I do is a result from a long process of preparation, there are many sketches done. Models on my shoots has it very easy, because I always know how I want every detail on my photograph.

Where do you prefer to shoot? Indoor, outdoor, urban landscapes, nature? How does the environment etches on the mood you want to share?

The most important is concept for me, than it doesn’t really matter where it is, I like to shoot anywhere.

I’ve seen that in many of your latest pictures there are a lot of models all the same time on the scene. Is that difficult to handle? Also, how much time it takes to organise the outlook of the picture, the poses, the expressions… to make it look perfectly harmonic?

Sometimes it is a bit hard to manage, but that is my current concept – the similarities plus a little, hidden difference. There are many social groups where people look the same or act the same. I try to reflect this phenomen in a way that is both a bit ironical and poetical. It usually takes about two or three weeks to make everything look perfect. Also, I never use Photoshop so the preparation is really important.

When you started working as a photographer, did you have any particular style or photography-idol, you wanted to aim at, or turn into?

The photography came to my life all of the sudden, so I never had any photographer-idol.

And are there any photographers or visual artists inspiring you at the moment?

What inspire me the most are my own life experiences.

In your eyes, what are the elements that make a bad picture bad?

It is really hard to tell, I don’t really like Photoshopped digital boring picture, where nothing is really happening.

Recommend us a song to browse your pictures along.

Sometimes it would be Parasite from How to Destroy Angels, other times Primitive from Roisin Murphy, or maybe also anything from Depeche Mode and Miss Kittin.

Check Michal’s works on:

Tumblr

Flickr

Artisla

Interview by Sara Scialpi