Gundega Dege

July 5, 2007

I found the work of Gundega Dege at photo.net and I was impressed. Very dramatic images, intense and captivating, both in color and black and white. She has also a nice website and also posts pictures at deviantart.com

Gundega Dege, 34 years old photo artist from Latvia. Her first steps in art were made during her childhood and school time when she attended drawing school and took part in several drawing competitions and exhibitions. After studies in the Secondary school she started to learn foreign languages and entered the University where for 5 years was studding foreign languages, meanwhile she was continuing to do drawings and write poetry.After her studies, she started to work as the translator, later as the public relations specialist and photojournalist in local newspaper. So she discovered the world of photography. Of course she was taking pictures during school time, but it was just casual. In 2004. she started to do it seriously when she bought her firs digital photo camera. Her first experience was to take photos of children. She studied photography at home, read books, photo magazines, learn in workshops.

In the spring of year 2005 her first personal photo exhibition was opened in her native town Ogre (together with her husband Andreij Vahrushew who also is photographer). In autumn the same year her second exhibition in the local Ogre art gallery and at the end of 2005. She has participated and won prizes in several local and international web site photo contests.

My heroes are people around me, I very often photograph my 2 children, I got inspiration from my everyday, from events around, from music I listen, just sometimes from my emotions how I feel or how other people feel around me, that’s why some of my photos may look depressive or black, because I try to show the saddest side of our life, there are so many unhappy people around us nowadays - many poor and homeless. Once I took photos about what I saw; now I take photos about what I feel- Gundega Dege