ENDLESSLY EDIBLE
SPACESHIPS POWERED BY SUGAR, ALIEN BEINGS CRAFTED FROM BISCUITS AND CONSTELLATIONS FORMED OF COFFEE BEANS. NO, WE’VE NOT HAD TOO MUCH CAFFEINE AND SUGAR TODAY. WELCOME TO THE MIND OF DINA BELENKO... Words: JORDAN BUTTERS
PHOTO STORY Dina Belenko
R
USSIAN STILL-LIFE photographer Dina Belenko is a master at telling animated tales with inanimate objects. Her creative vision and charming compositions have won her an army of inspired followers around the world, but it was her recent and ambitious Endless Book panoramic project that grabbed our eye this time around. The project’s goal was to shoot an image each week for an entire year, the results of which could be stitched together to tell a story. “The Endless Book project was initiated by illustrator Natalie Ratkovski,” explains Dina. “She gathered together a group of artists, and challenged each to create their own endless book throughout the course of one year. The task was to come up with one illustration per week using your chosen speciality – be it photography, watercolour painting, computer graphics, drawing, and so on. The theme was open, the only condition was that each illustration should flow seamlessly into the next. So, by the end of the year, each artist has a panoramic tapestry that represents a year’s work. Each frame or illustration can be enjoyed individually, or as a whole.” Dina’s theme was outer space, but with a difference – she crafted her make-believe universe out of her favourite still-life subjects – coffee, cupcakes and cookies. “I think that space is a surprisingly great theme for still-life photography,” suggests Dina. “Food and science is a good
94 Digital SLR Photography January 2016
PHOTO STORY Dina Belenko
combination too - after all, cooking sometimes feels like alchemy, especially for people who are not particularly good at it! Combining food with the theme of space exploration gave me plenty of ideas and stories to explore. I use food and drink in many of my still-life images as, for me, they represent a universal visual language; they are common and simple things that help everyone understand my message, wherever they are from. The objects I've used in this project, especially, can be found almost everywhere and they can help tell almost any story. I love the ease and beauty of basing my works on them.” Ask anyone who has taken on any form of photographic challenge and they’ll confirm that staying motivated isn’t easy. Shooting one strong image a week quickly gets difficult once the creative juices start to dry up, and that’s without considering that Dina’s project not only had to maintain a cohesive look and theme throughout, but each frame had to blend perfectly into the next. “Before starting this project, I struggled with the idea of shooting a series,” confesses Dina. “For me, a large series was three images! All of my images start with a sketch, but when planning the Endless Book I couldn’t sketch out every single image in advance. After I established my story’s protagonist – the person whose hands that you see in the images – I came up with a three-act structure: dreaming of space,
BIOGRAPHY Still-life photographer Dina Belenko lives in Khabarovsk in south-east Russia. A professional freelance photographer for four years, she specialises in creating unique still-life images for local companies as well as shooting book covers, CD sleeves, editorial pieces and stock images for clients all around the world. She sells her stock images through Getty Images and 500px Prime. www.500px.com/arken travelling through the galaxy and returning home to Earth. I then prepared a handful of raw ideas, such as a cupcake turning into a shooting star, a xenomorph made from crackers or doughnuts and icing sugar forming a planet with concentric rings.” The concept of telling a story through inanimate objects is a noticeable and important theme in Dina’s still-lifes. While she doesn’t bring her props to life in the literal sense, she manages to convey the idea of dreaming, impending adventure or wanderlust through everyday things. “I've always been keen on the idea of unrealised events,” she explains. “Recently I've noticed that often the ‘hero’ of my pictures is just thinking about or preparing for an adventure, instead of actually doing something. My traveller is always packing the case but never going out. It might be
I THINK IT’S MY FAVOURITE STORY – SOMEONE COMPLETELY ORDINARY WITH A LITTLE SPARK OF ADVENTURE INSIDE someone who is looking at stars, dreaming about ocean depths or wanting to become a magician – I think everyone can relate to this sense of daydreaming, or excitement from planning. It's my favourite story – someone completely ordinary with a little spark of adventure inside.” As Dina mentioned, all of her images start on paper – she carefully plans and sketches out each frame so that she already knows what the image will look like before she’s
All images: " When I first started working on my Endless Book series I was terrified – I had to make 52 pictures. Me, who used to call a series only three photos in a row! I pulled myself together and made a list of sweets and a another list of celestial objects, and thought which of them could be combined. As it turns out, cookies can, in fact, become an asteroid belt and a doughnut is pretty good for the centre of a star system!"
PHOTO STORY Dina Belenko
picked up her Nikon D800. “This is actually my favourite part,” she reveals. “It's the time when I find the motivation for each object and its integrating vector. What are these objects? How did they come here? Who brought them? Who is the protagonist? What's going on? Each photo has a coherent story behind it and I want the one frame that I capture to represent the culminating point of that story.” Storyboard complete, Dina then sets about creating or sourcing her props, paying close attention to the little details of course, and preparing her composition before she starts shooting: “The shooting stage itself doesn’t usually take very long as I have it all planned out beforehand. It’s only when there’s a dynamic element to create or control that it takes a bit more time, such as using sparklers, smoke or coffee splashes.”
96 Digital SLR Photography January 2016
THERE ARE SO MANY INTERESTING THINGS THAT SURROUND US! TAKE A COFFEE CUP FOR EXAMPLE: IT MAY BELONG TO AN ASTRONOMER AND REFLECT THE STARS ABOVE OR A LUNAR ECLIPSE Dina not only approached each image in her Endless Book as an individual piece, she had to be aware of the finished image fitting into her story, and making the blend between the neighbouring images seem natural and seamless. It wasn’t as hard as it sounds however: “Matching up the frames wasn’t a problem. The lighting remained fairly consistent throughout and my story
included some jumps in the timeline, so neighbouring frames could be lit differently – a couple of times I even used a hard light with strong shadows and these photos fit perfectly. I planned my compositions in such a way that some elements from the previous picture could flow into the next. Other than that, keeping the background dark and consistent, and shooting from the same overhead point of view, was enough to maintain cohesion.” Like all of Dina’s work, her Endless Book project is far more than just a collection of ‘things’ photographed. Composition is crucial in all forms of photography, but when it comes to still-lifes there has to be a particular attention to detail and an eye for what works and what doesn't, which she certainly possesses. In any one of Dina's images, everything appears ‘in-place’,
and the positioning of her props seems natural and unforced. Dina is adamant that none of this comes naturally, and is a result of experience and practice. “The important thing about composition is remembering the message that you’re trying to get across,” explains Dina. “Do you want a balanced image or a dynamic one? Do you want it to be pleasing for eyes or slightly chaotic and disturbing? Getting to grips with composition is much like learning a foreign language: the more you practise, the easier it is for people to understand you.” Dina’s creativity is enviously never ending. Where others might struggle to see the picture potential in an everyday object, her head is brimming with fantastical ideas. See that coffee cup? That’s a vessel for travelling across the galaxy. Those chocolate chip cookies? Well, they can be an asteroid
belt. A dusting of icing sugar becomes a trail of burnt rocket fuel expelled as a spaceship enters orbit. After you see these inanimate objects transformed in one of her masterful compositions it all seems so obvious, but it’s concocting those creative connections in the first place that gives Dina’s work the edge over most other still-life photographers. “You just need to look around,” Dina states, making it seem oh-so-simple. “There are so many interesting things that surround us! Take a coffee cup for example: it may belong to an astronomer and reflect the stars above or a lunar eclipse. Or you can fill it with hot coffee and have steam rising above it – in this steam kites or balloons and blimps might fly. You just need to ask questions of your props. Things are marvellous, they are responsive and supple. They can be pure inspiration themselves.”
All images: "I found it helpful to have a collection of things I want to try – locations, stories to illustrate, beautiful colour palettes, schemes of lighting, compositional tricks, etc. It's not a to-do list, it's more like I-can-give-it-a-try list. Maybe you'll never complete it, but you'll also never struggle for ideas again."
IN THE BAG... To record her creative compositions in all of their tactile intricacy, Dina uses the Nikon D800, a 36-megapixel full-frame camera with amazing ability to record detail. Dina’s Endless Book project was shot using the lightweight and fast NIKKOR AF-S 50mm f/1.8G. She also owns the NIKKOR AF-S VR Micro 105mm f/2.8G and has her eye on a NIKKOR PC-E Micro 85mm f/2.8D Tilt-Shift lens as the next addition to her outfit.