The idea of nostalgia implies loss, memory, things or events seen from the blurry distance of time, old-fashioned ways. Young Russian photographer Denis Yakovlev is exploring the notions of nostalgia and identity in his native homeland by combining modern methods with much older ways to produce multi-layered platinum palladium contact prints on richly textured paper. The effects are both complex and simple. The ideas reverberate with melancholy, confusion and the discomfort of pulling away from old ways and breaking into the new. He seems like a young photographer to watch.
— Jim Casper
Editor's note: We met Denis Yakovlev, and discovered his work, at the excellent Photovisa Festival in Krasnodar, Russia in 2013.
reveals yet another delicate side of flowers by pressing them in glass and projecting them directly onto photographic paper.
Magical black-and-white images by Zoltan Vansco "creates perceptible reality anew and shows us unusual connections."
Russian photographer found his artistic voice at an early age in Saint Petersburg, where he grew up during the transition from Soviet rule to a more "Western" type of government and popular consumption. On recent visits to Cuba, he re-discovered the feelings he had in the waning days of the Soviet era.
Photographer writes: "Many things touched me during the making of these images. I was touched by the gravity in their demeanour at the moment in front of the camera, their fragility, their simplicity, their grace, their closeness to one another, but most of all I was struck by their complete lack of posturing."