Dejan Sokolovski is representing an young generation of commercial automotive photographers. I, myself, am following him work from the early days. I had the opportunity to talk with him. We discussed commercial photography, hypercars, love for his family and friends.

– Where are you from?
– I’m from Sweden, in a town called Borås, quite near the bigger city Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. I’m born and raised in Sweden, but my origins are from Macedonia, a small country in the south of Europe.

– What are you working on at the moment?
– At the moment I am finalizing a big project I did for Volvo Polestar in Italy a couple of weeks ago, a week-long shoot of 5 cars. A lot of photos done I hope will be spread like wildfire once they’re released! :) Been a lot of long retouching days the last weeks, so now I’m looking forward for some christmas vacation! And looking forward a new year and new fun projects to work on.

– I believe you do only commercial photography. Are you interested in photographing motorsport? What actually brought you into photographing cars?
– Not only commercial, press-release mostly.. :) but photographing motorsport is also fun, I do that sometimes as well, but nothing that I really do very often and not anything I have on my website either.. usually it’s very documentary-style type of shoots..

What brought me into photographing cars was my interest for cars in the first place, something I’ve since forever liked, like most boys in their young or late age I had posters of cars, toys and everything back in the days..

– How would you describe yourself?
– As a person people usually describe me as a calm and very nice down-to-earth-type-of-guy, not usually stressing myself out over anything, but still a hard-working man. I believe I agree on that description! :)

– What inspires you?
– Anything could inspire me.. I love watching for new inspiration in the photography business.. It could be a new series of any of my favorite photographers.. something new and unique that’s coming out. Usually I get my inspiration from the Internet. It could be on Facebook, Blogs or Forums.. or just come from a random source.

– Question comes here by itself, who are your favourite photographers?
– I have many favourite photographers.. but friends and colleagues like Webb Bland for example, Easton Chang, Richard Thompson. They’re all awesome guys and photographers. Obviously many more photographers as well.

– I remember you worked with Webb Bland aka Notbland some years ago. How would you describe him, his work and your time working together?
– Webb is a great guy, a friend I’ve known for probably more than 10 years, when we both started out in photography and especially in the automotive photography.. we were both just doing it for a hobby when suddenly, with a lot of training of course, we ended up doing big jobs for car manufacturers. We’ve met both in work and non-work times and still have contact and collaborate a couple times a year on shoots.

When I did my big KIA Motors job he helped me out with post-processing, and I help him out with post-processing on his bigger shoots as well. Sometimes I also assist him on-location.. I think last time was in Italy for Alfa Romeo.

Reason why we both work good together both on location and in post is we got pretty similar style both the way we shoot, light cars and edit.. so that works out great! :)

– What for you is the most enjoyable part of automotive photography?
– To be working with something you love, in both cars and photography terms.. Sometimes it can be very stressful, but it’s usually always worth it in the end when you see your client’s thankful feedback, seeing your images being spread around the globe and that people appreciate your work of art you’ve struggled to achieve.

– How do you actually search for new clients? What’s your marketing strategy if I may?
– It’s very different.. but indeed you do have to search for new possible clients, mail your portfolio, make calls, make presentations with a client and introduce yourself.. Sometimes they call you first however and then it’s the same way, showcase your best work or what they want to see. In terms of them contacting you it’s always better… It’s not an easy task… I think I would benefit from having an agent do all this for me, so that I could only concentrate on what I’m best at.

– For whom do you wish to work?
– Every car brand out there! No, but seriously, anyone is a good potential client, but naturally any of the supercar/hypercar clients would probably be most fun, because of the extreme cars… Koenigsegg in Sweden, I still haven’t got a chance to work for, for example…

– What is your highlight of the year?
– My highlight of the year 2015 is that my first son was born in February. His name is David and it’s a blessing to have him in my and my wife’s lives. I think that once he grows up he will love cars and photography as much as I do.. or at least I’d like to think that.

– Why do you wake up in the morning?
– Because life is good? I have a family to take care of and love.

You can follow Dejan on:
His Instagram
His Facebook
His Website