My Journey with a Camera – Silvo Voznesenski
Who I am and what I do?
My name is Silvo Voznesenski. I’m a photographer from Tartu, where I’m still based today, and I really enjoy working with a camera—especially in the world of vehicles. If my name comes up within certain communities, I believe it’s primarily associated with car photography and shooting cars. Over the years, it has also become one of my biggest passions.
How I started with photography?
I started photography completely from scratch sometime between 2014 and 2016, back when car photography and car spotting weren’t as popular as they are today. At the time, we had a small Facebook group chat with friends, where we mostly shared photos of cars that someone had spotted. I ended up in that group through an Instagram theme page I was running back then, where the idea was simply to share Mercedes-Benz photos—basically anything I personally liked and found online. Through that account, I started making direct connections with car spotters at the time, who wanted me to post the cars they had spotted on my page (strictly Mercedes-Benz). Eventually, I found myself in that group chat, and from there, spotting and my interest in cars just kept growing and growing.
That’s how I started moving around with a heightened sense of awareness during my everyday trips around the city—hoping I might also spot something in Tartu worth photographing and sharing. At first, I captured what I found with my phone, but at some point I decided to borrow my dad’s camera, which was just sitting unused on a shelf anyway. That’s how my first real “tool” became the Canon EOS 40D.
Being part of the carspotting scene really fueled my drive to take better and better photos and to find more interesting cars. Of course, at that time I didn’t know much about Lightroom or Photoshop. The main goal was simply to photograph anything cool I saw on the streets, and every time I came across something new, it pushed me to shoot it even better and in a more exciting way. In 2016, I ended up selling my Instagram page (@mercedesbenzblog), which had grown to 188,000 followers, to a random guy online. With that money, I bought myself a newer (used) camera—a Canon 6D—and created a new account (@sv_carphotography), which I still run today. That’s how it all really began.
How things grew?
As I mentioned earlier, between 2016 and 2018 there weren’t many car spotters or automotive photographers on Instagram or other social media. I simply posted what I considered to be good photos, and together with the local community we started attending various summer car events. The ones that stand out the most are Honour Club Events and Gran Turismo Events, which took place at the Audru Circuit. As a young guy, it was genuinely thrilling and exciting to gain access to such cars and events — it felt like being in paradise, with Ferraris and Lamborghinis all around. It was truly exclusive content and imagery that wasn’t widely circulating on Estonian Instagram at the time. The goal, as always, was to shoot as much as possible so I could later share the captured content on Instagram and grow my following. By then I had more or less learned Lightroom and Photoshop — or at least that’s what I thought at the time.
Over time, I started receiving requests to photograph cars. Whether it was for sales photos or simply nice images of a vehicle, I began shooting different cars—just the way I thought looked good and felt right at the time. As time went on, the photos became better and more refined, and my understanding of what makes a good photo, as well as my overall approach, continued to evolve.
What doors has photography opened?
Photography is like a ticket to places you might not otherwise end up in, or simply wouldn’t be able to access. The same goes for the different opportunities that have opened up through it. One larger project that immediately comes to mind is @ok.turismo, where I was responsible for producing all the photographic content throughout the event.
Six days of driving along various mountain roads in the Alps. For me, it was very significant, because it was something I had always dreamed of and wanted to experience. Until that moment, it had felt impossible, as I didn’t have enough opportunities or resources to take part in something like that myself. Thanks to photography, my vision, the value I offer, and the trust placed in me, that exact door and opportunity opened.
That moment when you’re standing at Stelvio Pass, drinking coffee, watching your mates drive down the mountain. In the distance, views that quite literally take your breath away—and you’re there for the very reason of capturing it all on camera. Moments like that get pretty emotional, at least for me. It makes you reflect on how nothing is actually impossible, and everything is achievable once you’ve had even a small taste of it yourself.
Nothing comes for free—there are many different factors at play. I believe what has carried me forward is consistency, reliability, and of course, a bit of luck. It has shown me that reaching projects or work like this is absolutely realistic—it’s just a matter of the path you take and how you get there. Although I have to admit, there was a time when all of this felt like something I, a car photographer from Tartu, wouldn’t reach anytime soon—if ever.
Another exciting project I would highlight is an official photo challenge organized by Cupra, which flew me and my partner to Spain to visit Cupra. It all actually started in late autumn 2024, when I decided to take a Cupra Tavascan for a test drive, to spend some time with it, get familiar with it, and at the same time complete another photo project – I had a few ideas I wanted to test and experiment with. So, I brought my sister into this self-initiated mini project, whose role was to pose stylishly in the photos, and we began shooting at a pre-planned location.
The lighting conditions at that moment were in such perfect synergy with the car that the photos turned out more or less exactly as I had envisioned. Later, once I had gone through the images in Lightroom and added the final touches, I posted the series on my Instagram. Shortly after, Cupra’s official social media account reached out to me saying, “Hey, add this hashtag and you’ll be participating in an international Cupra Challenge photo competition.” I added the hashtag to my post and then completely forgot about it. Before that, I wasn’t aware that such a challenge was even taking place, and the originally planned shoot had no connection to it whatsoever.
Suddenly, I got a notification on my phone that Cupra had tagged me in a post, and that’s when I realised that one of my photos had made its way onto Cupra’s official account—and just like that, I had found myself in the competition.
The idea of the contest was that Cupra posted photos from different creators and photographers on their feed as a single carousel post, and the author of the photo with the most comments (based on its assigned number) would get the opportunity to fly out to Spain to visit Cupra’s headquarters, drive new models on a local racetrack, and build connections.
When I saw that my photo was featured in the challenge and that the winner would be the one with the most votes in the comments, I started actively campaigning and directing my followers to vote for me. Surprisingly, it all worked—I was genuinely amazed by how many acquaintances, friends, and even strangers cast their vote for me. All it took was commenting a single number, and that was it.
To sum it up, I ended up winning the challenge by a large margin over the course of a month, and that’s what opened the door for me to take part in this adventure. Flights, accommodation, and other expenses were all covered.
Even to this day, I still think it’s pretty amazing how a simple photo—or a photo project—I did here in Tartu, purely for myself, ended up leading to such an exciting culmination.
Do I see the world without a camera?
Friends and acquaintances have often asked me: “Silvo, are you able to switch off, or do you see the world only through opportunities?” The truth is that photography has irreversibly “ruined” me—but in the best possible way. Over the years, this hobby and work have become like an invisible filter in front of my eyes, one that doesn’t switch off even when the camera is at home on the shelf with the lens cap on.
Interestingly, my brain is constantly and subconsciously scanning the surroundings. It’s like there’s some kind of software running in my head all the time: “Wait, that wall is pretty cool,” or “If the light came from here and that car was right there, this would be a great shot,” or even when driving through a foggy morning, “Damn, if only there was someone or something standing here right now, this would be the perfect shot.”
It’s actually funny how photography, over time, teaches you to notice and sense opportunities where an average passerby would just see a random place or a forgotten corner. At times, it can also be exhausting, because there are moments and situations where I’d simply like to enjoy the atmosphere or a cool event or car—without mentally framing compositions and thinking about possibilities.
But it seems that this is just a part of me. Even when I don’t have a camera with me, I still create those shots in my head. I store those locations and ideas in my memory or in my phone notes, so that later—when the right project and the right car come along—I can take them “off the shelf” and turn them into something real.
More Than Metal and Tires: Storytelling Through the Camera
Over the years, I’ve come to realise that a single perfect photo of a car may be striking and cool, but the real magic lies in the whole. I don’t want to just photograph a vehicle—I want to tell a story. One of my favourite recent projects was exactly that, where the focus wasn’t only on a beautiful, shiny car, but on the entire atmosphere, the emotion, and the sense of a journey that comes with a special car and the feeling of being behind the wheel.
For me, storytelling means not limiting myself to just capturing the exterior of the vehicle, but trying to include the entire atmosphere and the connection between the driver or owner and the environment within the frame. Even the smallest details matter—whether it’s the owner’s hand on the steering wheel or the turning of the ignition key. These are the moments that draw the viewer in and create the feeling as if they were sitting inside the car themselves.
The human element always plays a part in this. Including the owner or driver in the photos gives everything a soul—because then it’s no longer just another shiny object, it’s their car. Of course, this doesn’t work with everyone, but when I create these kinds of projects for myself, the character, their presence, and the vehicle all hold an important place.
For the story to truly come to life, it needs dynamics—like rolling shots, for example, or well-composed frames captured from the roadside. That sense of movement toward a destination, complemented by wide shots and the surrounding environment. All these different angles, moments, and fragments come together to form a whole that is much more than just a gallery of beautiful images.
However, even with the best planning, there is one component I can’t control — something of a gamble — yet it ultimately determines the outcome of the whole series: the light. In this particular autumn shoot, nature played all its cards in our favor. The golden autumn light, combined with the car, created an atmosphere where everything just clicked. The shadows added a subtle sense of drama to the frames, while the sun brought them to life. That’s the moment in automotive photography where luck plays its role—when uncontrollable factors elevate your vision to something special.
These are exactly the moments that create that uniquely powerful, almost intoxicating feeling. And that feeling, in turn, is what fuels the drive to keep going down this path. That’s my journey with the camera.
EDIT
PHOTOGRAPHER
Saturday Drivers @saturday_drivers
Silvo Voznesenski @sv_carphotography
EDIT
PHOTOGRAPHER
