By Pjotr Barakov

White Walls

Inspiration is vital for creative people because without an inspirational spark creativity would not exist. But where does it come from? What inspires people to create? Many claim that inspiration is everywhere and everything can inspire. However saying that everything can inspire is abstract to the point that it stops being an answer to the question. All of us can name lots of things that aren't inspiring at all. So how can something boring be converted to something interesting?For example, I never thought that white walls can inspire me until my first year at university. For her first photography project, my course mate was taking pictures of white walls at photo studio. At first I was confused to say the least. How are those 4 walls different and what's so interesting about them? But once she showed first results I was impressed. Different textures and shades of white made each shot look different, I actually wanted to explore them.Not only those photos inspired me, but they also opened up my photographic eyes. I realised that there's no single thing not worth taking pictures of, because photography has a power to communicate an interesting perspective on the most common things. It's all about seeing details that are always there but not always noticed. As it is said God is in the details. I tend to think that this 'illumination' inspired me to start taking photos of the ground. (http://pjotrbarakov.format.com/ground) I discovered that asphalt is like a canvas full of different patterns. When I first showed prints during the class, many people didn't recognise the thing they see every day.To sum up, nothing is universally inspiring. I think that most things aren't inspiring at all at first sight. But by exploring boring stuff closely we can always find the interesting side of it that could be communicated to the audience through different mediums. This, in turn, has a power to inspire others to explore, discover and create.