NICOLAY LEVCHENKO

BY JACLYNTRUSS

Who is Nicolay Levchenko ? Once there was a reporter who asked a Buddhist Zen Master:

“What do you think is the most disgusting thing in the world?”.

In response, the Zen Master asked: “Who are you?”. “John Smith.” “This is your name, but who are you?” “I am a television reporter.” “That your job, but who are you?” “I am a human.” “That is your biological species, but who are you?” Then the reporter finally reached the essence of what he was being asked. He opened his mouth to speak but could not find the answer.

“Here it is, the most disgusting thing in the world - not to know who you are,” said the Zen Master.

“It’s quite difficult to answer ‘who you are’ because who I am is not about my name, not about my profession, or my species. I mean if I say: ‘I’m human, I work as a photographer/retoucher/videographer, my name is Nicolay Levchenko’, it says nothing about me at all - it’s just a vibration in the air,” Levchenko told INSPADES.

We may not know for sure who Nicolay Levchenko is, but we do know that he has chosen to be a dreamer, an admirer of beauty and a perfectionist. Nicolay Levchenko of Gomel, Belarus, studied to be a programmer and Russian to English translator but then chose to never work a single day in that arena. His true love was graphics, and when he found a vacancy as a retoucher in a local photography studio in 2000, he jumped at the opportunity. Photoshop 5.0 became his arsenal, his main weapons were his mouse and clone stamp. His salary was quite poor, not just in comparison to other European countries, but also his own.

“I just loved my work and wanted to improve my skills - that’s all I wanted, even if it meant that sometimes I hadn’t any money for food,” revealed Levchenko.

It was 2004 before he even considered creating photos in addition to retouching them. Finding an old rangefinder film camera in the attic, Levchenko started to shoot, but at the time, only landscapes. Eventually, he discovered some photographers that provided him his main course in photography, shaping the progression of his art.

“There are three names that affected my mind, they are: Henri CartierBresson - the poetry of his mind through black and white street photography amuses me then and now; Ansel Adams - who displays the most atmospheric natural beauty in landscapes on format cameras with unique techniques of post-processing; and Helmut Newton - his ironic humor, beautiful nude scenes and symbolic fashion photography,” mused Levchenko of the paragons of his craft.

A year later, Levchenko’s hobby of photography morphed into his work, though he never left his retouching job at the photo studio. Originally working with film, he struggled with the switch to the processes of digital photography, and it took him about 5 years before learning how to properly convert raw files.

“I had very poor skills in studio photography in those days” laughed Levchenko, “I’ve continued to experiment with film - different developers, different brands of films and use of grain. During the last ten years, photography was both my main hobby and work, I had no relationships, no vacations, only work, work, work.”

Levchenko’s stunning images in portraiture can be divided into a few main directions: Portrait, which he uses to “express the atmosphere and person’s character”; Beauty Portraits, in which he “creates fantasy images” of people - stylizing the beauty of humans through makeup, light and image manipulation; Nude Portraits, in which he highlights the “beauty of the body through light and shapes”; and Fitness Portraits, where he captures “muscles and proportion with special light setups and use of low-key”. Sometimes Levchenko is even the subject of his own portraiture, which he confesses takes months of preparation, dieting and beard growing.

“Funny thing, I recently opened my profile on 500px (500px.com/lev4) to see how many views I had, and to select images for this interview, and the highest number of views was on a picture of myself!” chuckled Levchenko.

When it comes to “likes” and “followers”, however, Levchenko makes no real effort to promote himself. The main reason being? “I don’t create for other people, I create for myself. Yes, I do work for money, but I do it for my pleasure too. If someone enjoys my work and hits “like” then that’s great, but if not, that’s okay too,” said Levchenko.

Over time, Levchenko’s practice has greatly changed, his filter of perception has widened and he now sees much more deeply into the details of an image - which begs him to pay close attention to every detail in his own work. He finds that this need for perfectionism is not always helpful in life and can be irritating to those around him, as well as himself. Of it, he said, “Sometimes, I have an image in my mind, and I’ll try to duplicate it in real world with the skills and tools I have, and in the end, the result may not be as good as it was in my head.”

Regardless of what he may think of his own work, whatever was in Levchenko’s head in creating his images, we found him to be more than capable of producing them in exquisite form - he did win our Worldwide Cover Contest after all!

Levchenko parted with some words of wisdom: “Follow your dreams, it may not be easy, it may even be a path of much pain. But, if you give up, you’ll end up living the life of someone else, and you will never know who you truly are. The decision is yours!”

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