Katrin Viil : Erotic fashion fetish photography

My name is Katrin Viil. I´m an Estonian based visual artist who uses photography as her medium. I consider myself one of the first (female) photographers who consciously covers the topic of erotic-fashion-fetish photography in Estonia.

Estonia used to be part of Soviet Union not long ago and that’s why there are still  some restrictions on art and way of thinking in general. Through lots of photographes are doing classical nudes or fashion, but still keeping those gategories apart from each other.

I became interested in photography quite randomly not long ago. I used to do some self-portraits and upload them into dating sites. Then one day one guy asked me to take pictures of him for money and I said ok. He liked my work and I became more confident and started using dating sites to find clients for photography sessions. In the beginning I used my own small apartment as the shooting location because I did not have a studio and I had never even used one. I´ve considered myself creative person all my life, but I had trouble finding the right medium. After highschool  I wanted to become a copywriter, but faced some serious existential/identity crisis and left university because of that. Couple a years later I attended university again and graduated as interior designer, but I don’t work in that field either.

At first I was fascinated by nudes only. But afterwards widened my fascination on people in general. That means I like to shoot nudes, fantasy, art, portraits, and of course erotic-fashion-fetish. Everyday life, beauty and  surrounding eniviorment is my inspiration.  I´m influenced by abstractionism but I also consider simplicity and randomness as important factors for my work. [Official Website]

For inspiration I also use social media channels and Google. It seems Facebook has some great advantage for me- throught that I can find other photography work and also easily see who is behind it. I believe its extremely important to get to know something about the artist too. The artist itself as a personality is the best link for people to understand  art. Seeing someones work in a gallery without any link to the real person is just boring and not reaching me. That’s why I usually don’t visit art exhibitons.

I have no degree in photography but I´m an artist filled with creative urge. For 4 years I have used some random Canon camera , ment for beginners and KIT lens. But it hasn´t stopped me from seeing the world and creating something new out of it. I do face a disease called ´´ camera complex´´ – that means for idiotic reasons I sometimes come across the idea that I can´t greate anything good because I don’t have enough money to buy some high-class equipment. But then again ART wins as the urge inside me starts creating out of nothing.

The series which i´m sending for submission is my newest work. It was an inspireing 4 hour shoot that gave me a record number of 40 good shots. I wanted to do something funky and a bit edgy. Tried to avoid too classical approaches and commercial poses. Some of the fashion is greated by designer Eret Kuusk. Others pieces are found from my own wardrobe. I´m a multitasker- that means I did the styling too in cooperation with the model. Kati (model) is my old schoolmate and she was experienced , but for us it was the first photoshoot together. In future I want to create more in erotic-fashion-fetish genre but use also male models and (gay) couples. [Official Website]