Developed

This project was made for a charitable foundation "Diaconia" that helps the ones in need, provides rehabilitation and takes care of social adaptation of drug addicted people, supports the homeless and carries out AIDS prevention work. The portraits were made at the foundation's "Sologubovka" facility in Leningrad region, Russia, where the people are undergoing rehabilitation on a charitable basis.

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When was the last time you were seen? Seen as in seen properly, forget those fleeting come and go glances and howdy smiles. When was the last time you were admired? The last time you were thought about? When was it that someone searched for his or her reflection in your eyes? And wondered about your ears being so transparent and poking out. And your nose looking so proud and others envious of it.

You are developed once again, as seen by the photographer. This person will seek you out of darkness and will paint you with light. Cameras command tranquility. An artist needs time to observe and see. To see how complex, flawed and controversial can be a way of any living man. To peer into living and imperfect, to be open to continuous comprehension and reconsideration of cold "comme il faut", to embrace and strive to understand the living. To do all that to be able to observe the beauty of the people.

I am very much pro life, but with no answer how to live. I am compassionate and cordial towards the living beings. Above all I view my mission as glorification of all the living, leaving moral deliberation aside.

In the future I would like revisit Russia, Sologubovka to make more portraits of the people there and display the works accompanied by their diaries.