Pravda is a monthly opinion leader magazine of cultural events, services,
venues, characters, criticism of phenomena and praises circulated free of
charge at over 400 outlets in Lithuania. It has a print run of 30,000.

Pravda is considered to be Number 1 magazine in the whole Baltic States
which best represents cultural situation for young socially active
hard-to-catch people. It the only and fairly new (started over 3 years now)
publication that has loyal followers.

Pravda online: [link]



Interview (extracts)

What city are living and working at the moment? Barcelona (Catalonia), Spain.

Where from did you get this slavic name – Vladimir? Actually, it’s my second Name. My first name is Mathieu. My parents were trotskyist militants and called me as a private joke like Lenin: Mathieu Vladimir Ilitch.

What is the best about East Europe? It’s a hard question. I guess something of a kind of romantic mood, the particular mix between being the heart of Old Europe and the marks of the Stalinist period... and of course, the breathless beauty of the Eastern Europe women.

Where do you get ideas for the photo shoots? I guess it’s a mix between improvisation, my feelings of the moment, my sensations toward the models... and a personal culture, mythology made of artistic, cinematographic, musical references, etc.

How many people usually work on your photosessions? In most of them, just the model and me. But for the editorial works, or the more sophisticated surreal photos, I can work with a lot more of people: make-up artists, stylists, etc.

Where do you find such models? Almost the totality of the models are complete strangers... volunteers who offer themselves through my different professional or personal spaces and portfolios in internet. Some are friends, friends of friends, co-eds, etc.

What are you up at the moment? I’m actually working in a couple of cinema projects... a few publications… the widening of my portfolio and knowledges… and the development of my personal website.

Whats your favourite background for photoshoot? I consider myself as a portrait photographer as I work always around the personality, the inner world, the own fantasies of my models... So it depends mostly on the spaces where the models are able to reveal something of their subjectivity, intimacy, identity... Some can project it on a studio wall or in their bathroom... As a personal preference, I guess I prefer to use the own house of the model as it's sometimes really revealing of themselves.

When are you at happiest? It may sound tacky… but I guess I'm at happiest when I see the people I love, I care about… happy. At a more personal and less-solemn level, I guess when I'm about to enter in a movie theatre to see the last movie of a beloved director or about to hear for the first time the new LP of a favourite band.

Tell us something no one knows about you. I have a strange masochist habit of wearing uncomfortable shoes… that make me pass through my own little private Passion with my feet.

How would you describe you personality? Restless. “I'll keep digging till I feel something” (Stinkfist, Tool)

Who makes you smile? Maybe Robert Downey Jr?

What makes you horny? The unquestionable and restless desire… in the desired person

What are you proud of? The confidence of my models... their giving in.

What are your political views? Revolutionary… kind of heterogeneous libertarian troskyist. Restless?

Are you happy with socialist party at government in Spain now? Not so much. Social-liberalism isn’t the kind of socialism I believe in. Nor like the one that has horribly suffocated Russia and Eastern Europe for sixty years.

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People of the sun...