portfolio alja minibajeva

photographer

ALJA MINiBAEVA

por

tfo

lio

ALJA MINiBAEVA photographer

“The world is an intricate entwinement of many planes of opposites: beauty and ugli-ness, pleasure and suffering, joy and woe. Knee-deep in everyday routines, a person loses the ability to notice life’s nuances, de-tails and sides. A photographer, on the oth-er hand, not only retains the ability to no-tice things in life, but is also able to capture them. That’s why one’s works can tell more about one than one could ever do oneself ”.


Alja Minibaeva is a professional photogra-pher, living and working in Prague. She’s a member of the Czech Photographers Un-ion and is regularly published in such pub-lications as Guide, Top Class, Youth Time, Tet-a-tet, Playboy, Status and Travel Fe-ver. She also works with such well-known brands as DIC, Yannis, Corneliani, Escada and Nike.

ALJA MINBAEVA photographer

To succeed in your labor of love you must actually love

your labor, and work hard.

Our new column is going to be all about people, who

choose their own way and back down under no circum-

stances.

Meet Alja Minibaeva – a talented photographer, interest-

ing interlocutor and an altogether beautiful person. Look-

ing at Alja’s works, it’s impossible to even assume that she

took up the camera only four years ago. It was her birth-

day present and having gotten it there was no way that

she would part with it!

THIS IS HOW THIS NEW BEGINNING ALL STARTED.

Alja’s first photographs were made in Egypt and were al-

ready quite good, but Alja decided it’s all or nothing – her

labor of love must be based on knowledge and profession-

alism and devoid of any shallow approaches. She studied

photography thoroughly, leaving no stone unturned; and

then she looked for somebody to show her the ropes of

professional photography. Finally, fortune brought Alja

to a true work devotee and a professor of photography in

the Moscow National Academic School of Art (in mem-

ory of the year 1905) – Leonid Dmitrievich Kursky. On

weekends, Leonid Dmitrievich conducted lessons on pho-

tography for those who really love the subject. For about

six months Alja studied lighting, coloristics and composi-

Tow

ar

ds

th

e d

rea

mtion, after which the wondrous world of creativity finally

swung its wide doors open before her. During that time

Alja Minibaeva lived in Moscow and worked indefatigably

… Her photo shoots became increasingly interesting and

professional.

AND THEN BEGAN HER PRAGUE CHAPTER…

For a year later Alja Minibaeva moved to Prague and…

for her it was back to work! However, nobody in Prague

needed her. She found herself with no work, no jobs, and

practically without money. But for her to start her busi-

ness, she needed her own studio and Internet-site.

“In the beginning it was tough going. – Says Alja, – All

I actually had was my camera. I couldn’t say a word in

Czech, wasn’t familiar with Prague, had no connections,

and no clue at all about how to make use of my skills. I

realized I needed to make my daily bread somehow, but…

I wanted to continue with photography very much. It’s the

Wondrous Prague after all! Here, I want to be nothing, but

an artist… or photographer, if I’m not destined to become

an artist”.

And then the hard days began: she would wake up at sun-

rise to process the piling photographs, then race to work

(thankfully – not far from home), in the evenings and on

the weekends for photo shooting. She also had a good deal

to learn, both in regard to Czech society and with respect

to the art of photography. “In photography you’ve always

got to learn something new” – says Alja. “I’m ready to

study it all my life, because actually, photography IS my

life. But for me to do that, I had to solve two problems: first

to find a good teacher and second to make the spare time

for learning. And no matter how I tried, those two things

never came simultaneously. Sometimes I wanted to cry out

of desperation and sheer irritation…”

However, in time Alja collected the needed equipment for

her studio, which was allocated in the very apartment that

she was renting. Her works started attracting the attention

of wedding agencies, which began to employ her services.

While low-priced, her works stroke the eye with their nov-

elty of composition and their thorough processing of pho-

tographs. Her site, which she built herself from the ground

up, firmly established its place at the top of the traffic rank-

ing. A browser sampling of “Alja Minibaeva” is choke-full

of thankful comments. “As widespread as the use of Inter-

net is nowadays, I always do my best to catch my client

personally before her or his departure from Prague to hand

a CD with the pertinent photos to each of my clients; fur-

ther than this, I always print out my top-ten hit parade

among these photos for each and every one of my clients.

To see such gratitude in a customer’s eyes and to realize

somebody needs my work so much – to me it’s like a drug!

My personal drug!”

THIS FOR ME CAN BE ONLY PHOTOGRAPHY!

When Alja’s job and photography could no longer be com-

bined, Alja took the plunge, quitting the job and devoting

herself completely to photography. The hard work con-

tinued, but now there are more and more offers, creative

experiments and exhibitions; new and interesting people

enter Alja’s life. Finally, Alja received the opportunity to

continue her professional education at the Institute of Dig-

ital Photography in Prague. She has since become a mem-

ber of the Czech Photographers Union, and has several

personal exhibitions under her belt.

Today Alja elegantly, delicately and masterfully photo

shoots weddings and family events, makes portfolios for

models, and collaborates with such magazines as Top Class

and Guide. Her works have graced our magazine too. Pub-

licity projects are made with the same devotion, and every

time they turn out to be something new, unorthodox and

surprising. To observe a photographer at work is always

exciting, but for Alja that goes double! Nothing distracts

her from her work; she asks for nothing and sees nothing

around her when she works, only the shot, that one and

only shot! She generally doesn’t talk much. For what’s there

to say? It’s her works that speak for her.

ALJA MINiBAEVA pho

tog

ra

pher

tel.: +420 604 438 134 e-mail: [email protected]

www.foto-alley.com

portfolio alja minibajeva

Documents