Photography is a process of visual narration of our existence, and photographers are narrators who use photography instead of words, and albums are chronicles – in good photography, every human emotion invariably finds its place. With their art, people ‘beyond the camera’ distil both chaos and beauty; they capture reality as it is, but also as it should be, by leaving room for a variety of interpretations.
Ask Dusko Miljanic.
You will immediately discover that good photography is never just one story, that it has no just one meaning, and that almost always, instead of giving us simple answers – it manages to ask the most complex questions.
Could photography be more realistic than reality? Who chooses who, the photographer’s photo or vice versa? How to become a photographer? When does this happen and why? And how much is a recipe for success in life different from a recipe for creating a successful photo? Let’s start from the beginning …
High school, developing black and white films with society, joining a photography club – these are Dusko’s beginnings. The youthful fervor in relation to photography as an art and craft grows into something that becomes a profession over time. If you ask him what is crucial that you have to have with the camera to capture the right moment, Dusko will tell you: ‘Feeling’. He not only photographs what he loves but, above all, photographs because he immeasurably loves what he does. He describes his clients as people he enjoys, whom he respects and who respect him. If he doesn’t have this feeling, Dusko doesn’t work. Is it a lack of professionalism or the only way for the creator, whose works also have market value, to the necessary extent remain in constant contact with those primordial and artistic in themselves? Photography has multiple levels of reading, it is an important part of the creative industries and, as such, of course, requires business partners who are able to appreciate its complexity.
Dusko Miljanic lives for photography and lives only from photography. He catches moments that sometimes may be out of sight to the human eye, but not to his lens.
Ask the actors.
Dusko is the official photographer of the Montenegrin National Theatre, so the actors will also tell you: it’s hard to fool the audience with unconvincing acting – this kind of master of the photographic craft is even harder.
Although its beginnings were marked by the time of the flourishing of analogue photographs, Miljanic uses this new time in the best possible way. He considers the digital age as a boon that brings speed; but he also describes good old analogy photography as the basis that every young creator in the field today needs to adopt as the foundation of his craft as it seeks: concentration, attention, patience, and sophisticated knowledge. It may be sometimes easier to reach for instant results and constantly rely on software solutions for post-production photo processing; but still, Dusko will say, ‘The sky is blue, so it’s blue, it can’t be more blue than it is’.
Everything that is done must be done with a right measure. So it is with the usage of modern technological advancements: adapt to the weather while staying on your own. Dusko Miljanic’s works have been exhibited at the Council of Europe Palace in Strasbourg, the ‘Locuslux’ Gallery in Brussels, the UNESCO Gallery in Paris, the Motovun Film Festival and the Venice Biennale. He is an official photographer of several relevant government institutions as well as private companies. He selflessly shares his masterful experience with students, and he dreams of an atelier in his native town Tivat…
Business is not missing, but neither is ambition. Dusko does not stop. Today, as in Carol’s Alice in Wonderland, it happens regularly that you have to run even if you just want to stay in place. Every progress requires one effort more. It’s all about timing, and the essentials are: good planning and a precisely captured moment! It seems, though, that a recipe for success in life is not much different than a recipe for creating a successful photo…
Ask whoever you want.
