No excuses: "I am a person who is himself of a pull" - an interview with Maxim Weisz

Special project "No excuses," he continues a series of interviews with the strong spirit of the people, whose thirst for life strangled any disease or injury.

This time we will talk with a professional photographer - Maxim Weisz. Maxim travels around the world and from each trip brings amazing landscape photography.

- Hello, Maxim! Welcome to a special project Layfhakera "There are no excuses."

- Hello, Anastasia!

- Maxim, I usually start a conversation with, ask guests to tell about his childhood. But to you I will have an unusual question. Imagine that you have only one minute to tell you about myself. What do you tell the world?

- About myself? Photographer, traveler... Statement is difficult to say. I prefer not to say, and do.

- then still a couple of words about his childhood. :)

- I was born and lived all my life in Minsk. He was brought up in a wonderful family - mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, younger brother.

- And what is your education?

- Techie. He graduated from the Belarusian State University. Once I taught, but after an injury left out of this activity. And besides, in our post-Soviet countries, the salary of the scientist can not survive.

- How did you get injured?

- Evil is simple enough. The question is not how to hit (and serious injuries are not insured by anyone), and what happens afterwards. Whom a survivor of trauma, it is whether he sits down on the neck of relatives or trying to get out and do something myself.

- I see that you chose the second path. Tell us what you're doing? How to earn a living?

- I have my own small computer business. I started doing as a student as a part-time job, and is still ongoing. Work his love, but in any job there is an element of routine, which is addictive.

- Not enough creativity?

- It is hard to say. Simply, there are things that I enjoy. I like to take pictures, I like nature.

Photo - a space

- How did you start taking pictures?

- I bought a digital camera - any "soapbox" Canon'ovskuyu for $ 100. It began to turn out a little better than the rest. I began to wonder: how to make a good photo? I began to view the works of other authors. I bought the camera better. Again I began to learn something. So it went.

- Were there people on whom you dub studying photo?

- Of course. In the early stages helped me a lot my friend photographer Ilya Misuno (warned by many mistakes, telling what is technology, how this or that picture, etc. has been made). In addition, Minsk has a photo club of the same name, where there are real "elders" - from which I got a very robust criticism of his first exhibition. Also in their teacher can write the Belarusian photographers Konstantin Melnik, Yegor Voinov.

But in general, the photo can be compared with the cosmos. A huge black space, in which there is no top or bottom, no left, no right - no preset coordinates, which can be attached. These coordinates every photographer sets himself.

- Why landscape?

- From great love for nature and travel. All my life I love nature. Best holiday for me - it is not to sit with friends in a bar or restaurant, and go somewhere far away from the city, in the woods, on the water body. Although the portrait photography I also interesting.

- What are its achievements in the field of photography you are proud of?

- Pride is not the best condition. There are things that I do, regardless of the circumstances. Rather, I am happy for what happened a few times in life. I took several personal and collective exhibitions. For example, in Belarus, in many cities, "a ride" exhibition "Crimean Spring", "Autumn Carpathian Mountains." In addition, a great achievement for himself as a photographer to see that I teach in Minsk photo photoschool Studio67 and lectured at the photo club "Minsk". Many of my students have made good progress.

Other works can be admired Maxim here.

reboot

- Let's talk about travel. What did they give you?

- There are several components. Firstly, the journey seriously relieves the person. There is an expression "to reload the gun." Do you work, work, work - accumulated fatigue. Even if you love your job, you still need to take a break.

Even a trip for 3-4 days (weekend + 2 time off) with the change of location and range of communication - it is a good restart. Then, coming back to work, it has a completely different look at all. There are problems that can be solved years and went somewhere, "he reloaded his gun," and you see that everything can be done in just a week.

Second (this is probably the most important thing) I'm interested in the world, it is interesting to look at him. Photos - this, of course, the memory of what is called, and then to remember and show people. But the most interesting - to live my life. Most to see, feel, know, understand.

Third, another important component - the people with whom you travel. It's one thing when we call up with friends once a week (month) or something crosses a couple of hours. And it is quite a different story when in the company of a man living a week. Between you constant communication, the general case. It is very well developed and maintains relationships.

After all, for what we love college years? Many people like to remember, as it was great. And what was great? You just did not have to call and invite friends for a long time, somewhere to get together. Friends have always been close. And they were always ready for anything. "Let's go play basketball?" - "Come on!"; "Let's go to the forest?" - "Let's go!". Never mind that there is no money and instead barbecue sausage fry half the entire brigade. Important is the fact that you are together, live together, with something to do. It's a great feeling.

- Where have you already visited?

- Mainly I go to Ukraine: Crimea, the Carpathians, the Ukrainian Tovtry, Dniester Canyon. It's warm, interesting and mountains there.

I went well in Russia and Europe. One day, he went to a conference in Strasbourg, at the same time drove through Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany.

Of course, Belarus and ride. But this local field trips, one to two day or night.

- Where is more like that in Europe or at us?

- Everywhere has its own charm. In Europe, of course, everything is good, clean, culturally. But one of the things for which I have somewhere to go - is the desire to be alone with himself and nature. And when you arrive in Europe at some camping, and next to you has 20 tents, while others feel not like in the CIS countries.

Nature wants privacy. Why am I in the same Crimea like to go in the spring, in May? Because there are no crowds of tourists, empty, green... Yes, the sea does not swim, but you see these places as never see in the summer.

- Do you want to feel the atmosphere of each place I visit?

- Yes. This, incidentally, contributes to the picture. It changes the outlook of man. There's even a phrase (not mine, but I agree with it): Photo learns to see the world without a camera. You know, now popular type of trip "20 castles in Poland for one day", where everything is run, run. Tourist simply trying to check in - "there was a," "there was." A picture teaches us that if you want to make a good shot, you have to find an interesting place to be in it exciting time to wait for a certain point in nature (e.g., good light, dusk, dawn, fog and etc.). And then you begin to see the world very differently. You understand that we should not seek to visit for a week 7 cities, it is better to go to 2, but imbued with them, their views, people.

- While you are listening to right now, there was still a question related to the photos. Today people are loaded with tons of "pictures" on the Internet. How do you feel about this?

- My grandfather said: "What zanadto, is not sensibly" ( "What is excessive, it is not wise" - prim.avtora). I well remember that phrase. On the one hand, sots.seti - it's good. Thanks to them, you can get in touch with a man who lives in the hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from you. For example, I have in many Ukrainian cities, where I was, is familiar. And come razvirtualizirovatsya, talk - it's great.

But on the other hand, when the network laid out tons of photos, and the stupid, the question arises of Internet addiction. Users click each step and spread it on the Internet. This is not a good approach because it turns out that people are traveling longer sits in Facebook'e and "Contacts", than to enjoy a vacation. There is a substitution of concepts: a good man is not what he is, for example, the sea, and from the fact that he put the N-Noe number of Likes for Fautua in a bar on the beach.

So I try to minimize the traveling computer equipment. Yes, I have a laptop, but I include it once a day or in a few days to clear the photos from the camera flash. Maybe, sometimes even to see the weather forecast.

- What, in your opinion, is the difference between "photos» and photos?

- You know, the photo can be compared with the music. Roughly speaking, there is such an instrument - guitar. And there are virtuosos of guitar skill, like Joe Satriani, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimi Hendrix and others. And there are those who know three chords and sing a song with a guitar near the entrance - so-called strunodergateli. But the right to life is both.

So it is with photography. There are artistic photography, there is a documentary, there's a photo album for the home. You just need to understand it and to differentiate: for myself, and that might be interesting to someone else.

Motivator - it is life itself

- Maxim, you are from Belarus. How are you doing with a barrier-free environment?

- Put it this way - what is being done. And it pleases. But the problems are many. In the new shops and facilities made ramps, elevators. It is a pity to suffer culture in society. Near the same supermarkets have parking for the disabled, but who are worth anything but disabled. As a result, you come and parkueshsya somewhere on the outskirts.

Another problem lies in the mentality that, in the opinion of some people, the disabled - is a miserable man, whose destiny - to stand with an outstretched hand. Not many people realize that if there is a head on your shoulders, you can earn a living in any position.

- Our project is called "No excuses." How do you understand this sentence?

- Personally, for myself, I do not put the question this way. It's just that I have my life and how I live it depends on me. It is possible to live differently. Everyone chooses for himself: who is willing to sit down with an outstretched hand, someone is willing to sit down on the neck of his relatives. But I live so interesting. It's against my nature.

I am a person who himself for a pull. There are things that I want in my life: I want to travel, to have a car, want me to have a family. And I'm doing something in this direction. Because just want a little - it is necessary to take and do. You can get more or less successful, but it would still be. And if you sit down and tell you what kind of a poor and miserable, then going to the poor and miserable.

- What are the main motivator in your life?

- You know, probably the main motivator - it's live. And life for me is movement. In any plan: to work, to meet people, to find something new, have some hobbies - simply live.

- Max, what do you dream?

- Of the things that I have not yet decided, but I hope they decide want me to have a family and children. Of not very sbytochnoy as any man in a wheelchair, I dream to get rid of this "bicycle".

- Finally, according to the established tradition, wish something readers Layfhakera.

- More often break away from their work. Do not dig into a routine. One should always remember that one life and work - not all, of what it consists. There are friends, family, relatives - must be found for them. This can manifest itself in different ways: from the joint trips to the cinema to travel.

You know, for me to wonder when a man spends his first vacation in 5 years, for example, repair, and lives all tortured. And then there is "weed" that person out of the swamp, from the routine for a few days, he looks at the world around and starts to cry - where he was the last five years, what to do? So live a full life, where everything has its place.

- Maxim, thank you for the great interview.

- Thanks you.