Dmitry Wild in his Kew Gardens home studio

This is how the series began…

On a cold winter night, sometime in early January, I photographed Dmitry Wild in his Kew Gardens basement studio. He lives in the apartment upstairs with his wife and son, but has access to this part of the house and thus has made it his private getaway from the bustle of family life. He comes here to write, or play music, or paint, and I wanted to photograph him in his element.

For those that don’t know, Dmitry is my brother. I have grown up listening to him write songs and play guitar. It was with him that I witnessed the process of a song being written and I got accustomed to the fixated stare he would get when an idea would come and he needed to work it out on his guitar. It always fascinated me to see the song in process, only to hear the final version later.

The truth is when I first started this project, it developed very organically. I did not have a set idea of what I was looking for besides wanting to photograph musicians in their creative spaces. I did not prepare a set of questions to ask or really thought much about how I wanted to portray the musicians. I just wanted to be in their space and talk to the musicians and let inspiration do the rest.

When I asked Dmitry about his process, he told me about how ideas come to him. Sometimes its a line or combination of words that gets stuck in his head and he starts singing them to himself until the lyrics emerge. Sometimes its a riff or a melody that he finds while picking on the guitar. Most of the time, he’s writing about his own life experiences, with the hope that someone listening has had a shared experience and will relate.

Aside from publishing a memoir and a book of poetry, Dmitry is currently working on a project helping to compose the music for a Hamlet-inspired Rock Opera called Mouth Trap. He also has his main Dmitry Wild project, an electro-rock project called WoW. You can check out his music below:

Explore Dmitry Wild's music: Website: Dmitry Wild IG: @dmitrywild MouthTrap project

How the “Creative Spaces of NYC Musicians” series began…

Almost six months have passed since I started working on the Creative Spaces of NYC Musicians photo series, and now I have come to realize that the project needs a voice and a place where that voice can be heard! This blog is my own space where I can explore the ideas of creativity in a deeper way and highlight some of the wonderful artists of New York City and what inspires them to compose. I think I should start at the beginning - how I came to start working on the series. To say that I had it all planned out would be lying. It has very much been a work in progress, changing its shape and incorporating new ideas as they come. I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon of inspiration and the form it takes. What sparks an idea? Where does this elusive thing come from? How much does the space that we occupy inform our creativity?

I wanted to work with musicians because well...I love music. To me, music is the most visceral art form, it has the capacity to make people feel in such a powerful way, it's effect is undeniable. I have always grown up with musicians in my family, and later went on to marry a musician, so in some ways my life has always had a soundtrack. Given this experience, I have always loved watching new songs be written (even now as I write this my husband is writing a song 3 feet away from me). To hear the spark of an idea, a nugget that sounds like it could become something, develop in front of you, is fascinating.

And the spaces part? That came about because living in New York means that space is a highly prized commodity!  The city can be so overwhelming with its energy, that each one of us struggles to establish a small slice of peace in our home where we can let down our city guard and be ourselves. Because our living quarters are small, NYC is a city where people often go out, rather than meet in their homes. As a result, we don't often get to see each other's private spaces.

This project has changed that for me and I feel incredibly honored for the opportunity to be welcomed into the homes and intimate corners where musicians write and work on their craft. The conversations I end up having and the raw moments that they share with me is a gift I cannot repay. I only hope that through the images in the Creative Spaces series, I can share their talent and their world with others.