The one who looks at this world with his eyes wide open
will find here numerous marvelous visions...
Ladies and gentlemen!
Creativity of the photographic institution, «Retroatelier», is inspired by the aesthetics of the past. The styles of bygone days, vintage photographs, painting, cinematography and our love for these kinds of art made the work — we moved from dreams to actions. On the pages of this site we bring to your attention the products of our creativity starting from the early period of our first steps and to the accumulation of our experiences (please do not judge to strictly) till nowadays. The theme of retro stylization is inexhaustible. It is more than just a tribute or fashion. They say that today vintage is in fashion?! Vintage is always in fashion! The past has never disappeared anywhere.
PS: We take seriously everything we do. Everything in art taken seriously is started from the Manifesto...
(not obligatory reading)
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
«See, this is new»?
It has already been,
in the ages before us.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-10
Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, please bear with us while we speak our collective minds here, not to indulge in some high and mighty bombast, mind you, but to fully elucidate our motivation for this project and rule out any possibility of misconception.
Part I. A Bad Situation
Like so much smog over an industrial cityscape, there is a grim pall hanging over the realm of art these days, a pall of derivativeness. Consciously or otherwise, all those newfangled trailblazers and proud pioneers of today just cannot help resorting to thinly veiled plagiarism, for there is no mistake that everything has indeed been done before. Everything under the sun is old hat, old news, mutton dressed up as lamb, if you will. Our eclectic age is a swarm with unfortunate buggers toiling away at re inventing the wheel with so much pathetic aplomb it makes you wish their creation would run them over. Poachers and plagiarists are running riot on all sides touting time honored ideas as their own. Piling it on until all those hodge podge odds and sods add up to such a frightful clutter that the original sources are no longer easily discernible. Oh what a crying shame, that woeful mess emblazoned with mass appeal emblems. «Lap it up» scream their banners. «Much of a muchness» is their motto. That's all fine and dandy and sweeties, but will you show us a drawing of a «muchness»?
Oh, where shall a wholesome non conformist seek solace? What shall bring them a much welcome respite? Our patience is wearing thin, and our nerves are frayed and frazzled. May we excuse ourselves now to shed a tear in private?
Part II. Making The Most Of A Bad Situation
Now, now, dearest ladies and gentlemen, fear not for our sanity for that is merely the way we used to feel. As we grew weary of shedding bitter tears and lamenting the adversities of our position with a futile vengeance, we reared up determinedly to meet the inevitable necessity of having to make the best of this bad situation. In a sudden flash of wizardly wit and wisdom, we turned to the above Ecclesiastic passage and, seeing it in an entirely new light, made it the cornerstone of our creative platform.
Leaving it to those highfalutin geniuses, or at least those who style themselves as professionals, to cast their precious spawn down in history, we have instead chosen to make history itself our oyster, so to speak, channeling our energies into retro reproduction. Our motives go from the personal desire to invoke the spirit of some glorious past eras by infusing our work with the best they have to offer, to the noble cause of promulgating our sources of inspiration... fanning the old flames, if you will.
Grandeur and pathos have no place in our world. With the sole exception of this so called manifesto, but we are sure you will forgive us this momentary aberration. We are not ones for taking art's name in vain, there are numerous others to do it for us.
Come to think of it, our chosen genre could be classified as conjuring. Some do it with mirrors, some torture rabbits, and we here create illusions of our own, to bring them before your eyes with a graceful flick of a computer mouse.
Our inspiration thrives on reminiscence and nostalgia. Our aims are to surprise, delight and possibly inspire you, to raise an appreciative smile and stir up a throb of wistful longing. That is the way it plays ladies and gentlemen, as simple as that.
So, with that in mind, ON WE GO INTO THE PAST!