interview with a photographer: Maja Rokavec

The photographer this month is from a small country and from a small village near Ljubljana, Slovenia. She love sports, and her life and photography. This interview is dedicated to her amazing and unique photography style . I could dedicate an interview with a dog trainer  becosue she's also a  discdog traienr. But Idecided to focus on photography because it deserves it. I think in future we will read an interview with a PRO Maja Rokavec.
I don't want that you waste any more time, do not read this introduction pass to the interview that is much more interesting :)


Maja and the warm up questions
What is your favourite tool in Photoshop and why?
I think it’s Magic Wand. Sometimes I wish I had one in my real life. :D


Do you like watching soap opera?
Nope.


When was the last time you had your hair cut?
About two months ago. :)


Ok, get it over here and start with the interview
Could you tell our readers a little about yourself  
My name is Maja Rokavec. I live in a small village near geometrical center of Slovenia. I am a student of University of Ljubljana, more exactly on Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engeneering, at the moment writing my diploma. In my free time I enjoy spending time with my dogs and try to catch the beautiful moments of life with my camera... My birthday is on 5th of July 1985 in sign of cancer, so I am a dreamer in my heart. Dogs have been in my life since I was a little girl. We are quite big family and there was always a dog in our house, who was a part of our family. I really love sports, and I do different sports with my dogs like running (rollerjoring, bikejoring, canicross...), agility, dogfrisbee...
My life motto: "Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you only have one life to live and one chance to do all the things you want to do."



Tell me a little bit about your start in dog sports photography.
When did you start getting interested in photography?
When my dad gave me his old camera film because he bought a new one. I think I was quite young, primary school I think. I took photos of my cats, dogs, rabbits, flowers... Then there was no digital photography. Then father gave me first digital camera when I was in gymnasium. And soon photography became a part of my everyday life. Especially dogs. I took photos of my siberian husky Živa everywhere we went. And finally on faculty I bought my self my first DSLR. And then my life changed completely. I found out how I can express my feelings through lenses and I became addicted. :)



Besides taking pictures you train a lot of sports with your dog.
Tell us more about these sports.
I love to see a dog while working and I love active breeds. I have a siberian husky Živa who is now 10 years old. I have done a lot of canicross, bikejoring and rollerjoring with her. She is a working dog and she always needed a lot of running. When I felt in love in border collies I knew I want to do agility, dogfrisbee and all kind of tricks. With Phoebe I started to train agility at Polona Bonač in march 2009 and later agility course at Manca Mikec and Silvia Trkman. And I introduced frisbee to Phoebe when she was quite young. At first we just played, tugged and had fun with it. Then we gradually started with rollers and chasing them. She is crazy about frisbees!!! Soo I decided to attend some frisbee seminars and in year 2010 we also started to compete in different disciplines.


With the discdog you have achieved very important results in the 2010.
What were your best moments In 2010? (top 3)
Yes, it was last year in April when I started to compete in dogfrisbee. Actually I attended dogfrisbee seminars before, but in spring 2010 there were several occasions to represent our dogfrisbee club Flipsi with frisbee shows, so I started to train with Phoebe. We haven’t trained that much, but we were were good at working together, so I think the results were very good at each competition. Each dogfrisbee competion was a great experience but best of them is still European dogfrisbee championship, where we were 1st in Divison Advanced in Holland - the country where Phoebe was born! :)

You can see the results of my competitions here: http://www.majchy.com/frisbee.html.
But I always say to myself: “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.”


How much time do you spend editing photos? What types of photo editing do you do? What software do you use?
I think too much! I edit photos in Photoshop. I always do some cropping on photos, maybe some color changes and sharpening for web publishing.


What equipment do you use to create your photos? Do you have any favorite lenses?
From this year on I have Canon Eos 7d, and still have 40d for my backup. The lenses I have are 24-70mm 2,8 and 70-200mm 2,8. I love 70-200mm, because with this one all the dog action photos are taken.

Do you have a favorite photo and If so, why is it your favorite?
I am quite a perfectionist and I always think I could do things better even if at the moment I do my best.  I have tonz of my favorite photos, each of them has its story, its meaning.
I am proud on this one:

because it was a Daily Deviation on Deviantart in the beginning of year 2011 and it really means a lot to me. :)


What do you think about the 3D photography? have you ever tried it?
I read a lot about it, haven’t tried it. Not my style I guess.

What is it you like the most about being a photographer?
It’s like an adventure, feeling me with adrenalin! Every photo shooting is a new mission, new ideas and new challenges. You really have to give yourself into it or the photo is just a total crap. I always say that photography is not how it looks like, but how it feels like. I like seeing people being happy with my photos, it always brighten my day. :)

What is the ONE lasting impression you want to leave in your photos?
I want to leave the feeling of the moment when the photo was taken. :)


if I say photoshop , what's the first thing that comes to your mind
Little blue icon on my desktop. :)


Are you a self taught photographer or did you have a mentor
How do you know that a photo is really good?
We had some photography lessons on my faculty, but I learned a lot by myself. Doing photography courses, reading book and what is most important practicing. :) The photo is really good when you can feel it, you can imagine the moment when it was taken and of course when is technically well taken.


I love your B&W work and you also have some color. What makes you choose to shot something in B&W over color?
I just feel the moment and then it is my subjective choice whether it will be in colors or in B&W.



What do you think about the fact that almost everyone edit the photos with photoshop? In your work you call it an advantage or a disadvantage?
I like Photoshop for finishing the details. The photo itself it still has to be good in original. Editing in PS must be done so you almost can’t see it’s edited. :)

Any plans for the future?
Oh yeah. Too much. :) To have fun with my dogs, to finish my diploma until autumn, go to European Dogfrisbee Championship, making my photography better and better, change my car for a bigger one, travel around and enjoy life. And to stay in love …with my boyfriend, my dogs, my life... :)


Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Make an interview with me in 2016 and you will see. :)))


Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview! Do you have anything else you would like to add?
Don't dream your life. Live your dreams! :)




visit:
http://www.photo.majchy.com
http://www.majchy.com


all the photos are a courtesy of Maja Rokavec

videos
European Dogfrisbee Championship 2010 - Phoebe
by Majchyka



How to spend the Sunday best?
Phoebe at Open Jumping 21st November 2010, Szigetszentmiklós, Hungarian Winter Cup
by Majchyka