JONATHAN CHERRY: What did you have for breakfast this morning?

MAX SHER: Dried plums, cheese and coffee.

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

MS: Irina Rozovsky, Andres Gonzalez, Zhangxiao   

JC: Any exciting plans for the rest of 2010?

MS: Photographer Savva Bogatyrev, photographer and graphic designer Leo Balanev (who also inspire me by the way) and I are working on the first issue of a new photography journal which we hope will be published on paper in English and Russian - to be out in 2011.

JC: What is I Will Drink to Your Decline all about?

MS: The title is a line from the song Decline by one of my favorite British bands The Tiger Lillies. The images were taken during a trip to Buryatia - a remote East Siberian region of Russia, and this song, I don’t know why, was on my mind almost every day during that trip. I think they match each other well - the images and the verse - making the whole thing a serene and melancholic short piece of visual poetry.  

JC: What does photography mean to you?

MS: Photography is a magical eye-opener.

JC: What is your current project all about?

MS: I’m planning to go to a Siberian city where I used to live (for 12 yrs.) but haven’t visited it for the last 7 years. No preconceptions, just photography pure and simple. 

JC: In your opinion what makes a successful portrait?

MS: Magic.  

JC: Any other thoughts / words of wisdom to recent photography graduates?

MS: Photography is all about manipulation and illusions and the more you manipulate the more interesting your photography is. I don’t mean technical manipulation, of course, but the visual, perceptional one. I think, the paradox of photography is that the less “truths” or “realities” you try to convey using photography, the more honest you are to the viewer and to the medium.