There is nothing better than bad weather, goes a popular saying after the title of a Bulgarian book and movie. It is a saying that photographer Elina Ninova develops in style, in her album “Inside Sofia’s puddles”. And as all good things, the idea for this album which has now become enormously popular in social networks, came up spontaneously, born of the beauty of the moment.

“Two weeks ago, on a Saturday I went out for a walk. I love going for walks when Sofia is empty of people and when it is raining. As I was strolling along with my camera, I fixed my eye on the puddles and noticed that they reflect so many beautiful things – the emblematic buildings of Sofia. They looked so interesting to me, submerged upside down in a parallel world. So, I started looking for more puddles, and to my surprise found there were so many of them! Especially when the rain subsided and the wind died down; that was when the ripples cleared and the puddles were like mirrors. I love water, rivers, lakes. Sofia doesn’t have a river but it has its puddles. I thank my stars that I am living in a city that is not tidy and neat, that the streets are nor boring and there are so many interesting things to be found here – like puddles, for example.”

The big city with its architecture, its energy, cultural layers and contradiction, its sounds, smells and people was something that captivated Elina’s imagination when she was still a child. The city is the motor that prompted her to pick up the camera, to draw inspiration from old French urban photography, from superb 20th century photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau.

“My interest in photography was sparked by my interest in the city of my birth – Sofia. When I was still at school, there used to be a magazine called Sofia. I loved to look at it because it had many photographs of the capital, puzzles, articles and essays. It was this magazine that got my interest in the city going, in its details that we so often overlook. And though I love traveling and taking photographs of different things, Sofia has remained my photographic love to this day.”

Every one of Elina Ninova’s albums – of Sofia, Barcelona, Paris and Istanbul – will surprise you with the powerful inner energy it conveys. Some of the photos are so vivid that they even resemble paintings – the highly dramatic photographs of Rome, for example. What does it take to capture the soul of a city in a photograph?

“It may sound like a platitude, but it takes love of the city, you need to look at it with fresh eyes. Only then can you get a sense of its soul. But how you will decide to convey it, that depends on many other things. I am very fond of quoting Ansel Adams who said that you don’t take a photograph, you make it. When you “make” a photograph you put into it the books you have read, the films you have seen, the music you have heard and even the people you have loved. Every photograph is refracted by the way we look at things.”

But how does a photographer find the unique shot? Does one have to look for it, or does the shot find the photographer? Elina Ninova:

“It is the shot that finds the photographer, though I love the staged photography with models. For example, in Russian photography websites there are incredibly beautiful things to be found – photographs that tell stories, an entire film to be deduced from just one frame, I really admire them. But that is not something I myself do. What I love to do is to capture the spontaneous moment in time. To walk in the street, spot something interesting and just photograph it,” says in conclusion photographer Elina Ninova.

English Milena Daynova