Q: Who are you and where are you located?
A: First of all, thank you for the invitation to participate in the Zedge Premium artist interview series. As a profession, I have been working in the medical field for over 20 years, I am licensed in pharmacy and belong to the Phoenix Pharma group from Romania, Europe.
Q: What kind of art do you make?
A: My passion for a very long time is photography. Therefore, I am also a photographer but amateur and I am also a pharmacist.
Q: When and why did you first become an artist?
A: I started taking photos because it represents an externalization of me in relation to the environment: I am both light and dark. I was always very critical of myself and I never reached the point where I could say, "I'm done, I got what I wanted".
I think a photographer should aim for perfection...even moral perfection (even if he says he's an artist). Everything started when in a single year I won 2 national contests, one with a very difficult subject – Contrast – and with professional photographer participants. I realized that I can do more and I reduced my work rate in the medical field. I started to document myself about what photo editing and design means. Not long after, I did the cover design for the poetry volumes of a local author of poetry.
Currently, 70% of my income comes from photography and design.
Q: What tools do you use most in your work, and how has that changed over time?
A: If you like doing something...it doesn't mean it's easy. But with time you form a style, gather information, know shortcuts...you move towards being a professional in what you once just liked. The most important tool is to be consistent in what you like to do.
Q: What’s your opinion of AI image generators? If you use them in your work, please tell us how.
A: There are many AI generated images in my creations but I would not completely transition between art generated 100% using artificial intelligence. AI can be used in certain areas, but I wouldn't see it as a human replacement.
If there were no people to post photos or other forms of manifestation, artificial intelligence would have no place to gather enough information. So...we are all part of the development of AI.
The outcome is very unpredictable when it comes to artificial intelligence. We never know what it can generate. It can be something incredible like you've never seen or it can be a nightmare.
The conclusion is that we can use AI as much as we can, but it is a topic that will always cause a lot of controversy. There is a difference between a painting, a real photo and a drawing generated with the help of artificial intelligence, but I am interested in the final result.
Q: How and when did you first discover Zedge Premium?
A: I discovered ZEDGE in January, 2023. A content creator recommended ZEDGE to me to upload wallpapers here. I was very skeptical because I currently only use personal photos as wallpapers for my phone and I didn't think that other people would do otherwise.
Q: How many profile pages do you have in Zedge?
A: I have 72 profiles with distinct themes but also mix profiles. I can tell you how I started and how I proceed now.
When you create a profile, it won't have very large downloads at the beginning. Like a new profile, I upload at least once a day and I make sure that there are very good images. New artists must know that in Zedge it's not the volume that matters, but the most much originality and quality.
Q: How many items do you upload each day/week/month on average?
A: Currently, I upload between 10-40 wallpapers daily by rotation on my profiles, but I have many days when I don't upload anything. I also have profiles specific to a specific trend that I upload only when necessary (example: ThanksGiving but also others). In Zedge my content exceeds 12 thousand images and categorically the images from a year ago are not comparable to the quality of the images that I am currently uploading.
Q: How much money do you make from Zedge in an average week/month/year?
A: At the end of the first month of working in Zedge, I made an income of 112 dollars. At that time, 15,000 users had downloaded my images and I couldn't believe it. Currently, I make more than 1,000 dollars monthly and I hope at the end of 2024 to reach at least 2,000 dollars. Zedge is for me like a child that must be raised nicely, educated and with great care.
Q: What’s surprised you about Zedge users? Has anything about them changed your approach to your work?
A: For the new Zedge artists, I can only tell them one thing: Zedge is not a place where we make pocket money, but a place where every person, artist or not, has the opportunity to exhibit their art. Art must have the power to transpose you into another world. Depending on everyone's knowledge and skill, it is a different thing for everyone.
Art does not require effort or fatigue. Everything you did with effort and felt the effort, is not art, it is work and the result will be painful. In art, forget about yourself, forget about worries, about problems, because an enlightened mind should neither think nor live them. Once you started to feel the effort and the pain, you lost the energy of the art.
And an essential tip: Be patient. The earth (and everything seen on it) was made in six days (not overnight). And there is one day left...in which to rest. Work and rest.
Q: What other artists or works inspire you?
A: My daily inspiration is what I love most: family and nature. There are many artists who inspire me; I have artist friends (painters, musicians, photographers) and I know that art is and will be a form of creative expression through which people express their feelings, thoughts and ideas.
I love everything about Zedge and will always bring new content to make as many users happy as possible.