SAMOVILI

Samovili is a project I made for my first Resort fashion line, which I presented as a designer during MAREDAMARE 2026. In this photo session, I wanted to show the true Bulgarian beauty of women, as well as nature.

Hi,

My name is Maya, and I am an artist who has been working in Marketing and Digitalization for the last 24 years. Since September 2022, I have been working as a designer and photographer for our family-owned brand TRKT. When I was a child, my mother taught me how to shoot with a film camera and how to use light to create beautiful photographs. That is why most of my photos have little to no corrections, taken in RAW.

Samovili is a project I made for my first Resort fashion line, which I presented as a designer during MAREDAMARE 2026. In this photo session, I wanted to show the true Bulgarian beauty of women, as well as nature. The photos from the waterfall were taken in the Cherven Bryag area, near Breste village, with a model who is 19 years old. The photos from the seaside were taken on the Burgas coast, and the model is 43 years old. Neither of them has had any corrections like plastic surgery.

In Bulgarian folklore, the samovila is a type of samodiva (wood nymph) from Northwest Bulgaria — the very region where I produce my brand, TRKT. Samodivas are mythical beings that dwell in nature and do magic. That is why I chose "Samovili" as the name for my first resort collection—honouring these beautiful Bulgarian landscapes and the women in the photographs.

All photos were taken with a Nikon D5200, with an AF-S NIKKOR 18-55 mm, in June (the waterfall photos) and in August 2026 (the seaside).

Since I was a child, I dreamed of working as a designer and artist, but the difficult transition in Bulgaria after the fall of communism stopped me. I started working at 17, and during the first 20 years of my professional career, I mostly used my knowledge in digitalisation, sales, and marketing. During the Covid-19 crisis, my husband and I decided to move from Sofia to a village in Northwestern Bulgaria, where my mother's paternal house is. Our desire was to help the community in the village of Glava and live closer to nature. Thus, the idea for a boutique clothing atelier was born. In 2022, when we purchased the newly created brand TRKT, I had to reshoot a large part of the product photos. So I turned to my hobby - photography. I continued to develop in this field in the following years, creating various image and product fashion photos of our clothes. I am proud of the results of the photographs I created for MAREDAMARE 2026, and that is why I dared to apply to this competition.

I hope that I have done a good job, which will open more doors for me as a photographer and an artist.

Sincerely yours,
Maya Tsvetkova-Nenova