Jovana Rikalo

When looking at Jovana Rikalo's work, you are entering a dream-like, cinematic and often surreal world. Her highly symbolic images include romantic fairytale castles and elegant models in flowing dresses standing in fields of flowers, snowy forests or even underwater.

Looking at her work, one might expect Jovana to have been creative since childhood, but hers was a late-flowering passion for artistic expression. "My creative journey started when I was in my second year of law studies," she says. "I thought I was going to be a lawyer but I didn't really like that idea. One day, I found the Flickr website and saw so many good photographers there, so many great ideas. I thought, why shouldn't I start doing something like that?"

Gradually, Jovana started selling her images to commercial and editorial clients and developed her own style of fantasy fine art imagery. Today, she works for a diverse range of international brands and her images have been used on over 70 book and magazine covers. Sometimes her clients approach her with an idea they would like her to develop; other times they use something she has already created in her personal work.

Jovana is never short of creative ideas and she does a huge amount of preparation. Most of her images are shot on location and she uses both natural and artificial light, depending on the project. She especially likes working at sunrise and sunset. Making her ideas come to life is very much a group effort – she has a team of around six people, depending on the project, including an assistant, a hair and make-up artist, a prop-maker and designers for custom-made dresses and décor.

"I create about 80% of my images in-camera," she says. "I prefer to do everything on location, because I really enjoy that process." In the final post-production stage, Jovana adds and subtracts elements, grades colours and further refines the image to produce her distinctive results.

Jovana's images are full of emotion, symbolism and storytelling and she says people are welcome to interpret them as they wish. "I know what the images mean for me, but even if I explain them, people will understand them the way they want to," she says. "They have that freedom. It's one of the beautiful things about photography."

Where do you get your ideas, and how do you bring them to life?

"My ideas mostly come from my emotions – how I feel about things that are going on in my life or things I'm dreaming about. I try to connect the location and the props with the emotion. I always need the right model – finding someone who can really express what I want is the most important thing. I love choosing unique people with unusual features."

How long does it take you to go from an initial idea to a finished image?

"Thinking about and developing an idea takes a couple of days. I have to know in advance exactly what I want to do. Making the props and finding the location takes the most time, because some props take about two weeks to make. So each idea takes about two or three weeks to complete."

What piece of Canon kit can you not live without, and why?

"The Canon EOS R6 Mark III is my favourite camera to date. The images have so much detail and the increased low-light capability means I don't have to stop at sunset when I'm shooting on location; I can stay a while and still get great images."

What else can we discover in your kitbag that helps you elevate your work?

"The Canon RF 28-70mm F2L USM is an amazing lens. I used to be the kind of photographer who was always changing lenses, but since switching to this, I've used it for most of my work. You can do almost everything with it. If you want to do fine art work and you can buy only one lens, buy this one."

"To turn an initial idea into a finished image, you need very good organisational skills. You have to be very creative, but also be that person who is writing down ideas and preparing everything in detail. You have to be clear about what you want to do from the beginning. You also have to be consistent. Once you've achieved one thing, move on and always keep thinking about what you want to do next."

Website: jovanarikalo.com

Instagram: @jovanarikalo

Facebook: Jovana Rikalo photography