Interview with Sarolta Ban

Piccola intervista (in inglese) alla fotografa ungherese Sarolta Ban!

Sarolta, surfing the net, accidentally, I've found out your artworks and immediately I did love them so I continued reading articles about you, but I was very surpised because most of the questions were about the technique, how many hours you take to edit your photos and something like that, but I would like to know you better by an artistically point of view, so I'd like to question something...

Did you have any painters or photographers as reference for your artworks?

I have lot of favorites, some of whom I really admire are Chema Madoz, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Did you have any artworks which refer to?

No.

How did you meet photography and this fairy style?

It was actually a coincidence. I had a small digital camera and tried to take photos, but I was never satisfied with them. Once with a sudden idea I changed the sky in one. I really liked it, it was fun and opened a lot of possibilities and that's how it started.

It's funny, because in Hungarian the word 'jeweller' means you compound materials to create things, and that's exactly what I do with my pictures :) But otherwise there is not much in common, maybe that both have a lot of little fine details, what you have to pay a lot of attention for.

Which is the message you want to leave to those ones that observe your photos?

I don't want to leave an exact message to the viewer, rather I try to hide messages and allegories in my pictures. It's good that my feelings are hidden in my images and everybody can see something different and can find their own personal stories.

How much have fairy tales and childhood memories influenced your work?

This is more than likely. I can't say how significant is this, but I'm sure childhood dreams had influenced my work. Its important to me that my images consists stories and fairy tales.

I would like to know the way you work better...

Usually there are pictures I want to start do with something, I randomly start trying out things with it and if the elements start working together then it's good :) In other cases, the idea comes first and then I begin to implement the idea.

How do you work technically? I mean how can you overlay all figures and charachters perfectly with the background?

I work on a picture from a few hours to a couple of days long and many times I use up to 100 different layers on a picture.

How can you avoid digital damages of your pictures during the post – production? I mean probably is a deep work that could bring to datas loss...

I suppose, for me its not a huge deal, because I make my images from different elements. If I had one main image, data loss would be a big threat.

Do you have any advice to give to all those, such as me, that want to approach this photographic style?

You have to play, try your style, the picture will form itself afterwards. If you try different approaches you will feel how the picture start to work.

Which are your next projects and exhibitions?

I will have exhibitions starting in March in Costa Rica, afterwards in England. We are further developing my homepage, so Spanish and South-American people can read it in Spanish and there will be finally Hungarian and Russian version as well. We will develop tablet and mobile friendy website as well.

http://www.saroltaban.com/
http://flickr.com/mindazonaltal
http://www.facebook.com/photoallegoryofsaroltaban
http://1x.com/member/25608/sarolta-bn/
http://www.behance.net/saroltaban
http://16357.portfolio.artlimited.net/