PHOTOGRAPHER ROKAS DARULIS
NAtural landscapes, women and fashion photography
Photographer Rokas Darulis is Lithuanian, but moved around as a child, changing schools several times. He moved to London to study photography and is now back and forth between London and Lithuania. When we saw his work we fell in love with the variety in his portfolio and in particular with the way he combines nature and eye for femininity. We are really excited to share today’s interview, thank you Rokas.
Your greatest inspirations or influences?
When I started studying photography I mostly loved photographing people and my biggest inspirations creatively were Paolo Roversi and Peter Lindbergh. I loved the way they saw women, Paolo in a very dreamy and romantic way and Peter in a very raw, true and honest way. I resonated most with that and I guess I see women in a similar way or a blend of the two. Later on as I got into fashion photography, I drew a lot of inspiration from my contemporaries, but in terms of my personal style I believe I would have credit Paolo, Peter, and of course Richard Avedon.
Tell us a bit about your creative process?
A few summers ago I’d started this personal project photographing women in a very natural way in the wilderness and nature of my home country Lithuania. I was looking for something that I could express myself in while keeping total freedom in what I do and how I do it. My main work in fashion photography consists of pretty big teams, a group of people looking at the screen seeing all the photos come in and instant feedback and so on. In my personal creative process I love having absolutely no team, just me and the subject, out in the wild somewhere, bouncing energy and ideas into each other trying to capture that lasting moment. I did not get to work on this project much last summer as I was going through a really hard time mentally and emotionally, but I feel this is a long term project I want to pursue and cannot wait until the summer to continue it. I have started releasing and selling limited edition prints from this project and it is one I am really proud of and honoured by people having this work on their walls.
How has this year changed your creativity
This year I’ve had a lot of alone time, I think we all did, which at least for me gave me time to think and look a bit more inward than outward. I think it might have changed my creativity a bit in a means of looking and chasing what the industry does or what the trends are and more into what is it that I want to do or show. Another thing that’s changed is our ability to work together remotely, the borders got even smaller and meeting online became the norm. I think moving forward we will see more interesting collaborations between people and creatives.
Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?
I see Elon Musk as a big icon of our time who should go down in history books for daring to dream so big and pushing humanity forward. I always think of him when I consider something impossible to achieve.
Do you think the art world needs to change, and if so how can it be improved.
The art world is confusing as it is, not just for outsiders but for insiders as well. It’s a bit like a live organism which is hard to predict. Maybe true art insiders would prove me wrong, but that’s just how I feel☺ I believe the art world already has started changing very intensely with the new technology of blockchain and NFT’s (look up Non-fungible tokens). With the fast digitalisation of humanity, art is catching up and now we have new concepts like digital art ownership, which I find fascinating and somewhat hard to grasp still. But I believe this will open up so many new ways of collecting art and investing in art, where multiple people from all around the world will be able to invest in and own a single piece of art and it will decentralise the power from the galleries onto the people. And it’s just started happening over this last year. For anyone who has no clue what I am talking about, look up the artist Beeple.