A Parallel Planets piece by Pepe Serapio
Parallel Planets presents Ruta Emilija
in 20:20
Story by Jofer Serapio
Mentioned: Zeiss lens, camembert cheese, and the setting of your past life
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When I first came across Ruta Emilija, she was working on a romance novel she intended to be a collaboration with someone else. She even held a contest of sorts to find that someone else. A contest that would have been to the death if murder wasn't illegal (not to mention unethical). In the end, though, that someone else turned out to be me. Who'd have thunk it, right? #PlotTwistOfTheYear
That very collaboration ended up on the backburner thanks to our respective schedules growing up and out of control plus a lot of other worldly endeavors, 60% of which have become nothing more than abandoned dreams on my end. But the friendship that blossomed out of that serendipitous encounter only grew stronger with each year that passed. We've grown and grown up, like a good bottle of Bordeaux or a block of camembert cheese, and somehow we still manage to come together to discuss and edit every once in a blue moon.
These days, though, Ruta goes under the guise of a photographer when she's not battling dragons (or numbers, no one is particularly clear on which). It's not as if she no longer writes, she still does, just not as often as she captures her subjects into immortality.
Her photography is pleasing to the senses, to say the least. It's not hard to just imagine an experience with her subjects, which are mostly gorgeous locations, the setting of your past life, of an alternate present doused in brilliant colors, of a home you have always wanted but never known. Every time I look at her photos, I am transported to these worlds and more. It's an inexpensive way to travel, and there's no annoying kid kicking the back of your seat for hours on end.
If you ask her about her Strangers project, Ruta will tell you there's nothing unique about it. She was inspired by Danny Santos of Singapore who was most probably inspired by someone else and so on and so forth. The movement is in the veins of Humans of New York, Humans of Amsterdam, and Humans of wherever else. Like most things that involve social interaction, this project was nothing but challenging. I can only imagine the amount of confidence needed to engage a random person on the street and ask to take that stranger's picture. I can't even go up to a pretty girl sitting all by herself in a coffee shop and just say hi.
Despite the stress, however, Ruta contends to the rewards being more than worth it.
"Some of the best shots I ever took were during the time when I was immersed in the Strangers project, and because Dublin is such a compact city, you sometimes get that magical moment when someone you photographed walks into your favourite Mexican place," Ruta reveals.
Ruta took her first photograph when she was just three years old. She was away on holiday with her mother whose photographs she took with their lomo camera. Her father was the family photographer who documented everything. He started with film and developed his photographs in darkrooms at the age of 15.
Ruta started experimenting with her family's mirror-less point and shoot around the same age, along with a Zeiss lens on manual mode (Zeiss, she insists, has been making some of the best lenses since pre-WWII). She started with landscapes and streets, cities, before she got her hands on her first DSLR and eventually, her first-ever model—a friend in college. From that point on, Ruta never looked back. She has even shared her tricks by teaching photography classes and workshops.
“Photography is a constant learning experience—there's always something new to learn, something more to do, and after a while you stop and realize you have something to share. Plus I ramble about technique to anyone who'll listen.”
She explains, "I think in a way I grew into it, photography, and I intertwined naturally and it felt right."
Despite being a "little" swamped with her day job, a sentiment I share but with more loathing towards my own occupation, she still has time for another photography project that has probably already began before this story ever saw the light of day. The nameless (as of this writing) project is set to focus on modern architecture, mostly, and light. She has a special place in her heart for slow shutter, which will also be a focus of the project, likening it to manipulating the world around the photographer.
"It's something that I have dabbled with quite a lot, something I love, something I have even taught as a class! An extensive project was due, I think," Ruta tells me before adding, "I should also finish the painting that's been staring at me for the last couple of months—I don't want to go near it without sufficient time and inspiration."
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