Featured Photographer: Chris Devour
We hear from 25-year-old Oradea-based photographer, Chris Devour who tells us about his passions and inspirations.
All photography featured is from Chris’s “Indoor Stories” series, featuring Alice Peneaca with make-up by Ana Medinschi.
I am 25 years old, currently based in Oradea, but travelling a lot to Bucharest. I was born in Oradea, and lived there for about 13 years, then moved to Budapest for 4 years, and afterwards to Bucharest for 2 years for my MA studies. I have always been fascinated with art related stuff, collecting things I found interesting, drawing, photography, history and cultural studies. I played drums for 3 years in a punk-rock band when I was younger and living in Budapest, so music is really important to me. One of my favourite projects in 2016 was going on tour around Europe, with Golan (band) opening for Parov Stelar. I had to document their tour. It was an amazing experience. I had the opportunity to work with great people from models to artists, friends and people I love. Everyone I’ve worked with was and is a great inspiration for my photos.
“While my studies focus mainly on political science diplomacy & security, Marxism and anarcho-communism, my passion for photography comes from my childhood.”
While my studies focus mainly on political science diplomacy & security, Marxism and anarcho-communism, my passion for photography comes from my childhood. As I mentioned before, I was always fascinated with collecting photos or illustrations of the things I liked from cartoons, books, magazines. Making collages was part of this process. Growing up I loved to draw, so combining photography with drawing and collages somehow ended up into what I love doing today.
One of the main concepts reappearing in my work was the covering of the face/identity/self. A mixture of futuristic virtual reality where we will hardly know our actual features, instead we will only settle for the virtual ones, thus covering our true identity, while this is already beginning to take shape, it is quite haunting if we think about it, but like everything it does have beauty and it can inspire. What if this becomes norm in the future.
I like ordered chaos, so I usually take something and try to make it simple, I believe it comes naturally, but inspiration is always present so I admit that I was influenced by many foreign artists. However, I’m constantly trying to apply my own style to the photo.
My favourite place to shoot would be a minimal white room with little or no furniture, wooden floors and big windows.