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| All images have been
used with permission. All images are copyrighted
and strictly for educational and viewing purposes. |
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How did you
become a photographer?
How I became a photographer is a story in itself.
Who I am at this moment is the superposition of
every wave of experience, past, present and future.
I am the culmination of foreshadowing because I
am what I always wanted to be. I grew up between
North America, Europe and Asia, graduated with a
degree in Robotics, a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering,
and am continuing my post-graduate work in forgetting
everything I ever learned in school. I worked as
a consultant in the aerospace industry for over
ten years, ran my own company, did well, lost interest,
then turned my attention to fashion photography
and photojournalism, which have always been my great
passions. I am an infant of the seventies who bought
into the idea that anything is possible if we our
minds to it. I do what I do for love and not out
of necessity, and I revel in the fact that life
offers infinite possibilities and challenges. I
go through life in different phases like a waveform
propagating through space in no particular direction,
yet deriving momentum from all the highs and lows. |
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What motivates
you?
Beauty motivates me in everything I do. I try to
seek beauty in every facet of life from the most
complex creations to the most mundane things we
all take for granted every day. I never follow society's
status quo about what is beautiful because I find
it too artificially structured and limiting. I am
motivated to seek patterns of beauty in nature derived
from non-linearity, asymmetry and chaos. I try to
look beyond the surface of everything within our
reason and logic, and even question the most basic
elements so that I can squeeze out those hidden
patterns and connections which give continuity to
our thoughts and all that we see around us. Nothing
is as logical and simple as our brains tell us.
If we can overcome the barrier of rational thinking,
a whole new realm unfolds before us, offering infinite
possibilities and endless freedom for creative expression. |
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Where do you
get your inspirational/creative ideas?
An idea flickers in your head for a few milliseconds
amongst a million other flickering thoughts but
some shine extra bright, just enough to set off
a spark in your brain, which carries through like
a filament into the physical and spiritual realm
until it forms a concrete vision. Everyone finds
his or her sparks from different sources. These
neurological sparks originate from ones dreams,
experiences, emotions, and memories, or a combination
of all these that forms ones perception of reality.
I believe that one's perception of reality is really
the basis of all creativity. If your perception
is not restricted by rationality or common sense,
or a fixed frame of reference for your beliefs,
you leave your mind fertile and allow it to absorb
as many elements as possible from your environment.
In this way, everything, in one way or another,
can set off that spark. We transfer thought, idea
and spirit, which are abstract concepts, into actual
physical matter during the creative process. The
final result of a creative inspirational burst is
atoms and electrons, whether it's a piece of poetry,
a sculpture, a painting or a photograph. Hence,
all forms of art originate from abstraction. Through
our senses, our perception, our spiritual drive
and our passion we somehow translate that abstraction
into form. And just how accurately we perform the
translation, I believe, depends on how strong our
spiritual link is to what we are trying to create.
When we are bonded with our art and create anything
derived purely out of love, without any external
motivation for money or recognition, that work becomes
not only a physical but also a spiritual embodiment
of our idea in its purest form. |
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Where do you
get the models for each of your assignments?
Generally, the models are selected by the client,
the creative director or the production manager
of a particular project. Occasionally they will
request my presence during the castings but this
is not common. For my own artistic work, it's a
different story because I personally select all
the models with my fashion stylist, and we only
use people who embody perfectly the roles of the
characters we are creating. |
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Where is your
favorite location for photo shoots?
My favorite location, without a doubt, is on the
beaches of Brazil along the northern coast, especially
in the winter because the light at that time is
so clean and pure, and has a special spectral quality
unlike anywhere else I have shot. |
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What was the
most exciting assignment you have worked on?
The Earth Pilgrim project was the most exciting
and rewarding project I have ever worked on. This
was a seven-year journey that brought me to the
most remote corners of the globe and allowed me
to see and experience firsthand the lifestyles of
several vanishing cultures. It started off as a
simple travelogue but soon evolved into a spiritual
journey in which the photography became a secondary
aspect. This is not to diminish in any way the work
that went into producing these images because we
had the grueling task of hauling around loads of
photo gear from place to place, whether trekking
through the Andes or the jungles of Borneo or the
Amazon, or through the Arctic tundra. After shooting
over 3,000 rolls of film and coming face to face
with death at least on three occasions, I wear the
scars and bruises of this journey on my body with
pride as a reminder of the incredible things I was
fortunate enough to experience. Earth Pilgrim is
really the beginning of a lifelong journey but I
finally decided early last year that there was enough
material to tell an interesting story, so we held
a large scale exhibit in Sao Paulo, Brasil as a
retrospective of all this work. There were 150 images
on display and the exhibit attracted over 9,000
people in a month and it was covered by nearly every
type of media. Now in July a fine art book will
be published to coincide with the next exhibit in
Barcelona. I think the greatest gratification I
get in all my work is to hear how it has positively
affected peoples lives from so many places around
the world. That alone makes everything I do worthwhile. |
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What professional
advice can you give others?
From my own experience, the sagest advice I can
give to any artist is to follow their own artistic
vision without any fear or compromise. The path
will be strewn with obstacles and deviations but
stubbornness and unwavering dedication are the only
things that will allow one to maintain the proper
direction. And despite what people may say or think,
a real artist will be relentless and continue to
plough ahead like nothing else matters. Then and
only then will the art come to life in its truest
form. |
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For information about
Sacha Dean Biyan, please visit:
www.eccentris.com
www.sachabiyan.com |
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