Interview with documentary photographer Dina Litovsky

From Fashion Week to Amish Vacations

For this week's article, we interviewed documentary photographer Dina Litovsky. Litovsky is a Ukrainian-born photographer residing in New York City, and writer of the popular Substack "In the Flash". Dina's imagery can be described as visual sociology and explores the idea of leisure, often focusing on subcultures and social gatherings.

She is a regular contributor to National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, TIME, New Yorker, GQ and New York Magazine. Selected exhibitions include group and solo shows at the Museum of the City of New York; Noordelicht Festival, Netherlands; Annenberg Space for Photography, LA; Anastasia Photo Gallery, NYC; Australian Center of Photography, The Fence, USA; Tanto Tempo Gallery, Japan; LightFactory Museum, Charlotte. She holds a bachelor's in psychology from NYU and an MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts, NY.

In this interview, we discussed her approach to new projects, the importance of Substack for photographers, and more.

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Jorge Delgado-Ureña: In your writings, you critique "art speak" and artist statements that overly intellectualize and obscure art and its meanings. If you had to write one, what would be your artist statement?

Dina Litovsky: I am not against artist statements, but I dislike when they become a nonsensical "art speak" soup made up of generalizations, vague universal concepts, and token terms like "liminality." A good artist statement should give the viewer a deeper understanding of the work rather than make them feel stupid when reading it. I have an artist statement for all of my projects, and I'd advise every photographer to write out one when they are at least half-way done with a series. Transferring visual ideas into writing crystalizes intent and gives the photographer a greater focus when editing.

Jorge Delgado-Ureña: Your way of writing and speaking is straightforward and direct. Do you feel that there is a relationship between that and your use of flash? Or would you say that it is more related to an influence from your mentors and great photographers like Bruce Gilden?

I never made the connection between my writing and my flash use, but that's a fun concept. In an overreaching way, both are concerned with the "Why." My flash helps me uncover the "Why" of social realities by isolating the subjects from the environment and heightening the drama. With writing, I am most eager to get away from obfuscating the artistic process from BS and emphasize the thinking process and intent, stressing the "Why" over the "How."

Jorge Delgado-Ureña:  I like a lot the idea that I have heard from you that sometimes you feel seduced by the possibility of the images first and then you find the story later. Does it happen that sometimes you don't find the story?

All the time. I get seduced often and get tangled in many leads at once. Only a fraction of them end up as projects.

            If you don't find the story, what do you do with the images?

The optimist in me saves them for the future when I will have the willpower and the imagination to excavate them and turn them into something more solid.

Jorge Delgado-Ureña: I believe that during your freshman orientation day in photography school, someone told you the do's and don'ts of photography (Don't photograph yourself, friends, or family). I would argue that a few years ago, documenting very personal things has become a "trend" embraced by many. Is that "trend" something that has had an impact on your way of approaching stories?

Following trends can be a recipe for disaster. At the same time, I like to be aware of them, and I keep up with all the photographers, magazines, and photo books to see who is doing what. Sometimes a new trend is inspiring in that it helps me get past a personal dead end. For example, a few years ago, Pari Dukovic made gels cool again. In my MFA, we were taught that gels were a garish throwback to the 80s, while Alec Soth's muted tones and even lighting were the pinnacle of an art portrait. When I saw Dukovic's work, I was reminded how much I prefer dazzling drama to elegant somberness, and I started introducing gels into my portrait work. My biggest portrait project of 2023 was a remote portrait photography series for NYTMag, where I used gels and theatrical gobos with abandon. It may be my favorite portrait series I've done.

Jorge Delgado-Ureña: Having your origins in Donetsk, Ukraine, have you thought about going to cover the war, maybe from that very specific and personal point of view?

I was offered an assignment to fly to Ukraine when the war had just begun, but I declined. I felt I couldn't add anything so vital to the conversation that I had to fly across the world and take work from the local photographers on the ground. At the same time, so many Western photographers started flocking there that it felt like disaster tourism to me. Big magazines wanted big-name photographers to shoot for them, but to be honest, I haven't seen a single series from such a collaboration that was more meaningful than the work of the Ukrainian photographers. At the same time, I am not a war photographer. If anything, I would be interested in photographing the aftermath of the fighting (whenever we even get to the aftermath, as it's still continuing) and how it has changed the fabric of society.

Jorge Delgado-Ureña:  I have heard you say that when you are going to start a project you think it is genius; if not, you wouldn't do it. Besides loving the statement, I would ask you: How often do you have genius ideas, and how often do they stay genius?

Thinking my ideas are genius is a prerequisite for excitement, but that usually has a shelf life of a few weeks to a few months. That's where the struggle comes in — to keep on with the project after the initial excitement fades. I am addicted to epiphanies, which is one of the reasons I started writing. Transforming visual thinking into the written word is chock full of them.

Jorge Delgado-Ureña: I believe that there is some kind of disconnect between the perception of photography on social media and the classic industry of magazine photography. How do you match these two worlds that are so different?

There is a difference in how we consume photography with every format, whether it's magazines, exhibitions, books, or social media. I don't necessarily think one is better than the other, and I like using them all interchangeably. Instagram is my daily source of visual inspiration. It's the most convenient way to discover new photographers and keep up with what everyone is doing.

Jorge Delgado-Ureña: Your Substack ‘In the Flash’ is pretty popular, with over 10,000 subscribers – what inspired you to create a Substack and what value do you think Substack has in this day and age?

Over 17,000 as of 2024, which is wild. I started writing two years ago because I wanted to propel my work forward, looking for both inspiration and a push. There were very few photography newsletters at the time, and even fewer that dealt with the artistic process vs. technique. Adam Ferguson's Substack was the first one that I became aware of (unfortunately, he has stopped writing since then). A lot of photography blogs focus either on the technical aspects — equipment and technique — or wax poetic about photography as a mysterious practice resisting analysis. That's one of the romantic tropes of the medium, that the creative process is a lucky accident, and photographers are artists that can think only in visuals. I wanted to hack that. When I started writing, it felt as though a part of my brain had woken up from hibernation, and I was able to think through problems and issues in my work and photography in general in a way that has eluded me until now. Creative burnout, taking better portraits, and reflecting on street photography were among the topics that I have struggled with for years without resolution. Writing about them opened the door to the possibility of one, and I am guessing that demystifying the photographic process is the reason why people are relating to the newsletter.

Jorge Delgado-Ureña: In your article "A Somewhat Serious Guide to Photography Do's and Don'ts", you advise photographers to be cautious when taking black and white photos, avoid golden hour, and to embrace AI. Some of this may be seen as controversial. What role do you think AI art should (or will) have in the photography field? 

I like to think of AI as a completely separate field from photography. It is problematic only when those two are conflated, and AI is used to imitate not just the appearance but the narrative of photography. Faux-documentary photography AI work is blurring the line between the two, which doesn't work because it misses the crux of documentary photography —empathy. Many people are incensed by it and blame it on the medium itself, but I think it's just the first, inevitable step in our grappling with the new technology. AI as an art form can move forward when we stop imitating and use the technology on its own merits, with ideas and concepts unique to the medium. What makes that hard now is AI's dependence on existing visuals, but I am optimistic that we'll get there. The one artist who uses AI best now is Charlie Engman. He creates enigmatic visuals that exploit the incongruities of AI while having a stylistic signature of his photographic works. I wrote about this issue with AI in a newsletter post.

The Problem of AI Photography is Not the Medium, It's the Message

Thanks Dina for this insightful interview! You can view more of Dina’s work on Instagram.