Nikolay Pandev's formula for good photography: Be different!

 

The formula for a good photograph by Nikolay Pandev contains only one word. "Different". He reached it after years of pursuing his dream of traveling the world with a camera in hand. Today - a local CANON ambassador for Bulgaria, he makes dreams come true in his studio in Sofia, but never stops dreaming of travel shots. From Bulgaria. We present to you Niki Pandev - the photographer with a shot that reached 5 million readers of National Geographic, who gladly shares his experience with even complete beginners in photography. With one goal: to inspire more people to look at the world through a lens.

The beginning: affinity for photography and attitude towards art

"I haven't always earned my living or fed my family with photography. I studied completely different things, but I am a pretty good example of how, when you have passion, you are dedicated, you are focused on something you love to do very much - to be with a camera in hand, to press the shutter from time to time, to dream - things work out."

This is how Niki Pandev begins his story about his encounter with photography. He adds that he has always had an affinity for photography and an attitude towards art:

"I won't mention the Art High School I had entered, and in the very first hour I had given up. I told myself - OK, math is going well for me, I hate it, but it's going well, I'm going to the Math High School. Many years later, my attitude towards art prevailed and provoked me to pick up the camera."

 

In fact, "picking up" the camera happened much earlier - with a story from his summer vacation in first grade. He went to a camp by the sea with his father's ZENIT camera, loaded with 6 rolls of ORWO.

"Third roll, the camera slips from the strap, falls to the ground, and the light meter breaks at the front. At that time, it was very basic - it was the device that told me: 'you need to be at these and these settings, at this aperture you're at this speed'," Niki explains almost cinematically.

Even then, he showed himself to be a mathematician, quickly finding a solution: he collected money from his friends and bought an analog Skina, into which "you put the film and click." To this day, he keeps the black and white photos from that time. And the memory of the promise his father asked of him when he returned from the camp in his hometown of Stara Zagora: "Next year, when you go to camp again, don't come back with a camcorder and another excuse!"

Niki kept his promise. And he focused on mathematics and photography. His first digital camera was a FUJI. In 1999, he took his first photos with it. "I was already a student in Sofia, a successful product of the Math High School in Stara Zagora and an unsuccessful product of the Technical University," he jokes.

How much math is there in photography

 

 

When asked how much mathematics there is in photography, he replies:

"All of life is formulas, even in nature. But I detest formulas and numbers. In short - we must go by feel. You have to train your eye: just as an athlete goes out today and runs all day on the track, and a mathematician trains their brain with problems, we, as people of visual arts, look through the viewfinder and train our eye and brain to perceive the world: framing, composition... We train, we make efforts."

A significant part of Niki Pandev's "training" and "efforts" behind the lens takes place outside Bulgaria.

"London was my home for 15 years. It took my youth, but it gave me everything else and a very large part of who I am. Niki Pandev is perhaps Niki Pandev thanks to those 15 years in London," he says.

There he understood what collectivism and teamwork are, how important contacts and experience in different genres of photography are. His main "bread and butter" genre at that time was event photography. For these, you need to have the timing and be very technically prepared, to be a psychologist, he explains.

"To be there and not be there, to document the event without disrupting it."

His turning point came with landscape photography

He learned other lessons with landscape photography: discipline and patience.

"You have scheduled time, you wait for the golden hour, you have locations. That is, saying: 'well, I need to shower, go to the toilet, I forgot when I last ate, my leg hurts' - is not an option. You go, you shoot, you wait, you freeze. In Iceland, I've been in -20 degrees Celsius, which felt like -45. I went for 3 days but stayed 12, and the shot was in National Geographic's 125th Anniversary Edition with a circulation of 5 million, and they sent it to me from the editorial office in Washington. That was the turning point and it made me Nikolay Pandev."

 

 

And his dream of being a travel photographer came true. Having traveled from Iceland to Indonesia, mostly with a camera, Niki reordered his values, thanks to encounters with vastly different peoples and cultures.

"And that was thanks to the camera. That is, there came a phase in my life when I could turn it off, put it in my bag, and enjoy the surrounding world: to find some beauty in a blade of grass, because I'm in the desert, or in a tiny stone in Iceland, where everything is covered in snow and ice. The lens taught me to do that - to look around," he admits. And immediately inspires us with advice: "So don't forget to look around and dream for the moment."

About 7 years ago, the moment brought him back to Bulgaria. Today he is no longer alone, but with a wife and 2 children.

"It's a privilege for me to inspire bright young minds. Now I don't leave the studio – I shoot commercials, studio photography. For the past four and a half years, I've been making my dreams come true there."

 

 

 

 

His workhorse is CANON, and the best shot is yet to come

"My workhorse for the last year and a half has been the CANON EOS R5. Before that, I used the CANON EOS R. When this system appeared, it was love at first sight," Niki Pandev states emphatically. And regarding the best shot, he claims that: "It must be the one I will take tomorrow."

 

 

And because, in his words, life is short, you mustn't lose the moment.

"The exact phrase is: you don't shoot a landscape on the way back. Now something has inspired you - grab your camera, go out and shoot. The chance of taking exactly that picture will set you apart from the rest. OK, we are all photographers, but what would make my photography different? By being different, it's already interesting."

Niki Pandev's lessons, experience, and dreams

 

 

At the end of January, Dynaphos gave dozens the opportunity to learn from Niki Pandev's experience in product photography with Nanlite continuous lighting. Thus, for 5 hours and in two large waves, over 50 people met with him and photographed the three sets he prepared, managing to take home a print of their best shot. And because not stopping to dream is one of his guiding lights in life, Nikolay Pandev admits that outside of studio photography, he is working to fulfill this dream as well. 

"To focus even more on Bulgaria. With my skills, my contacts, what I know, what I possess, what I am, to contribute to Bulgaria being shown beyond its borders."

 

 

In the article, the cover photo with Niki Pandev and the shot from the Dynaphos event are by Dilyana Gergova. Nikolay Pandev's original photos are provided by him and published with his consent. More about his work and how to contact him can be found on his website and his social media profiles: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.