JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

PAVEL TERESHKOVETS: The thought that I’ll have enough time to sleep in the afterlife.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

PT: I especially get inspired by the mind blowing surrealism of Rodney Smith’s photo works, the beautiful geometry of Antoine Gonine’s shots and by the wonderful works of the russian travel photographer Sergey Danyushevskiy.

JC: What is your current project all about?

PT: At the moment I’m working on the project that is about the forlorness of the night city I’m living in. The project is a little bit mysterious, because the mystery comes already during the process of creating this series - I’m spending nights outside in very weird and strange places where there are no people at all or just a few of them - bums, tramps and so on. Sometimes it gets pretty dangerous in such outlying places - in our country it’s forbidden to make shots of lots of objects, so you have to be very careful and stay unnoticed.

JC: What initially drew you to photography?

PT: My father was an alpinist, a climber. Every summer he went to a new place on the planet to win another mountain top. He always took his soviet camera Smena Lomo with him to show me afterwards all the beauty of those scenes unseen by me for I was too young to go with him. The photos I was looking at ispired me a lot so I began to photograph myself.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

PT: I’m always trying to combine these two things although it’s sometimes hardly possible. But the best case is when you’re doing things you like and they bring you money at the same time. I’m working on it because reaching the level where there is no more difference between your personal work and work bringing you money is the top of this world’s pleasure.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

PT: Don’t listen to anybody and don’t obey any rules in your creative work. Do what you like and how you feel. Be sure of your great future.

JC: Favourite tree?

PT: Palm trees of the Venice beach in L.A.