LIKE I WANT IT TO BE: An interview with photographer Caras Ionut

LIKE I WANT IT TO BE: An interview with photographer Caras Ionut

Last updated: January 26th, 2019

In looking for images to go with an article, I stumbled across one that held me spellbound. I followed the links until I eventually discovered the photographer—Caras Ionut from Romania. His opening words on one website grabbed my attention and I contacted him. He agreed to an interview.

Your biography on the website 1x.com starts, “I’m nobody…” What do you mean by that?

Well, many people around me tell me I’m an artist, and after a while I realize that only to them am I an “artist”—not to me. If I ever became an artist, well, I will know that also myself.  So, for most of the world I’m nobody.

What made you interested in photography as a medium to express yourself?

A lot of things make me express myself. I like to capture the whole world in my mind and then show it in a different perspective—like I want it to be. I realize many times that the “image” view in the viewfinder of the camera is totally different to what we actually see with our eyes. And it is the same for me: When I cast my eyes over a situation—a normal situation that others will see as it probably is—I see what I want to believe.

LIKE I WANT IT TO BE: An interview with photographer Caras IonutYour images have a whimsical theme as if you want things to be dreamlike rather than real. Is this true, and if so, why is this?

I love surrealistic. I love paranormal. I love the other side of reality. I’m a dreamer and even now I believe in miracles. The hard part is that the life I now live is very hard for me. To be honest I’m not happy right now. I’m very grateful for what I am, for my lovely daughter and my wife, but I know I cannot offer them much, and this makes me very sad. I try to do my best, but many times I feel like I’m doing nothing with my life. So with my images, I show what I actually want to do, or how I would like to be—I create my world where everything has meaning.  But most of my work is reflected in my life. Maybe this is just me, the way I am.

You are from and living in Romania, how does this affect your view of the world you photograph?

I think each country has something special, so I don’t know if there’s anything about Romania that affects my work. I’ve been travelling around the world, so I now have many places in my mind, many places that I missed taking photos. It’s hard to answer an unknown question within myself. All I know is that here, in my country, I will never succeed as an artist, so I must escape and go somewhere I can have more changes as a human being and after that, as a future artist.

Many of your images are composites that you have put into a theme as if you want to make something more of what you have photographed. Why is this?

It’s very simple, as I said before. It is the world that I want to see and I’m sure it is a better one, clearer, more powerful, easy to see the subject and what I’m trying to say. In real life, many things are more complicated. I don’t like complicated… I like clean and easy to read.

LIKE I WANT IT TO BE: An interview with photographer Caras IonutHow many of your photographs are “as is” and why? What made you leave them exactly as they were taken?

I must tell you a secret—and after that it will not be a secret. I have many photographs in my computer—over 180,000 I have taken—and most of them are good, but nothing special.  So I wanted to get out of this “world” with something special, but this kind of special is very rare for me. I don’t like routine or simple things. I like Superman or other things that can show us there is more possible than we can ever imagine.

If I sometimes post a photo as taken, it is only to show that I love and know how to do real photography.  Many people from my country find fault with me for making compositions of images, but I love photography more than composites, and I know more about photography than I know about making composite images or Photoshop.

You mentioned that you have not had work for over two years. Did you mean as a photographer, or another job? What work did you used to do?

At 17, I started a more serious and much harder job as a seaman and after a number of promotions, I was working as an Able Seaman. But it is the same hard job every day for almost 14 years.  After I got married and my wife became pregnant, I stopped going to sea so I could look after her. Then my seaman papers expired and it became difficult to rejoin a ship. I lived in a different city and getting my papers renewed involved a lot of money which I didn’t have anymore. The pregnancy period was very hard—neither of us had a job or extra income. Now I stay at home and try to survive through my passion—photography or photo manipulation, retouching, composition, etc.

Your website consists of manuals teaching people how to manipulate photographs they have taken using various computer techniques. As it is so difficult to find any images these days that haven’t been manipulated in some way, I must ask, what is wrong with the real?

LIKE I WANT IT TO BE: An interview with photographer Caras IonutI started doing this in order to survive. Now I love what I do and believe it is easy for those photographers and will soon no longer be considered a shame to make compositions or use Photoshop. Even though many photographers use Photoshop, they don’t want to admit it pretending it is pure photography.

Yes, it is very hard to make real photography cool and it is because the world of photography is huge and it is extremely hard to do something new as everybody is a photographer. These days, to be “out of the box” is amazingly hard, and this is another instance of where the place you live has an impact. Here, where I live, nothing is “Wow.” I can take a street shot, or a fashion shot, but nothing more. I cannot travel all day long as others do so this is another reason I started making compositions as things around here suck.

And now, photo manipulation is part of my life, so I will love both. I don’t find anything wrong with this—it is the only way things can be… putting together reality and surrealism.

Many people take offense to photo manipulation, but if they know how to do it, they would also learn to love it. It’s the same as breast implants. Many woman who cannot afford it, scorn this kind of operation. But if tomorrow this surgery were free, they would all have silicone implants. They all have haircuts, adjust their clothing style when they gain or lose weight, use makeup, change paintings, etc. These things are considered normal as they have learned to accept them. And, in time, using Photoshop will be considered normal. Anyways, most photographers use Photoshop to crop or enhance their photos—the things they do depend on their level of Photoshop proficiency.

LIKE I WANT IT TO BE: An interview with photographer Caras IonutHow would you put your life philosophy in one line?

Take care what you wish for, it may come true.

Of all your images, do you have any that you would call your favourites, and why?
I have many favourite images for many reasons: story, impact, colours, people in it, difficulty level, uniqueness, etc. But the photography I take of my daughter is particularly difficult to decide on—to choose a favourite—as I am personally attached to them all. But if I had to pick one, it would be this one.

LIKE I WANT IT TO BE: An interview with photographer Caras Ionut

To see more of Caras Ionut’s work, please visit 1x.com500px.com, Photodom.com and his website http://carasdesign.ro/

  1. Wow! Those images are so mystical looking. I personally don’t care if they are “real” or not. If they look good and evoke an emotional response, I’m happy. The artwork nowadays is in the image manipulation and that’s fine. It’s the same with electronic music and other arts that are moving towards digital.

  2. This was a great interview! Its super different which is really awesome!

    The way you present the pictures is totally unique, I’ve never seen anything like it!

    I’ll be following your work closely!

  3. Thank you, Greg, for your comments regarding the interview. Coming from a fellow South African, I really appreciate them. Yes, Caras’ work is extraordinary. He is also a delightful person with a wonderfully sympathetic world-view – and it shows in his work.

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