Bio
Mila Nesterova. Photographer, Yoga therapist and guide to spiritual and healing practices. (108waystohappiness.com)
I was born in Moscow, from the age of 4 I studied ballet professionally, touring all over the world with concerts and dance festivals.
At the age of 19, moved to France, where i was trained in photography, graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Ecoule Superiour de Photographie, Icart-Photo, Paris. It was a wonderful time, in which the smooth transition from film to digital photography was just taking place. I was lucky to learn classical photography from the masters of analog photography.
We shot everything on black and white film, developed and printed ourselves, spending hours on end in the laboratory. It was real magic. As an assistant in a photo studio in Paris, I was lucky enough to work on set with the greatest Peter Lindberg and Jean-Baptiste Mondino.
After graduation, I returned to Moscow, where from 2006-2008 I worked with such publications as Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Yes, InterBusiness, I also shot portfolios and portraits for actors, musicians, worked on film sets, held exhibitions.
In 2008 i moved to London, where i completed my Master’s degree, MA fashion photography at London College of fashion, University of the Arts London. I spent a total of 10 years in London, shot a lot for Hooligan magazine, held exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at The Book club, my colleagues and I had our own photo studio in Chelsea, and shot a lot of commercial shoots.
Since 2010, I became seriously interested in yoga and meditation, and interest in photography began to gradually fade away, and since 2014, I had a serious crisis. I practically did not want to pick up the camera at all, inspiration was gone, I continued to shoot only commercial projects.
Photography is a look outside, and meditation, yoga is a dive inside yourself, I think that’s why I had such a conflict and rejection, I needed time to explore myself and this world through practices and a new adjustment of myself.
In 2018, I returned back to Moscow and focused on teaching yoga and healing work. When the coronavirus began in 2019 during the lockdown, I started sorting through my archives with photos and making a new website. My fellow psychic mediums kept telling me that photography would definitely come back into my life and that I would start taking pictures again. It seemed somehow unrealistic at that time, because there was no desire at all.
But gradually the desire began to awaken in me, though it became unclear how to combine everything that I do now and find time for photography as well.
I work a lot with people and help people through practices to be filled with light and positivity, to love themselves, to see their strengths, to discover their talents.
Photography is a great tool that can also help you look at yourself in a new way, see yourself, consider, accept, love.
I am currently interested in shooting portraits as a therapeutic session of self-exploration and self-discovery.
Since 2023 my doors are open, come to portrait shootings.