If Lynch knew about the Black Samovar

Three heroines, three stories. Inspired by Lynch’s Twin Peaks, I recreated its atmosphere dreamlike tension, mythology, transformation. The Black Samovar became a symbol. A tribute to Lynch, who taught me to love color as much as black and white.

Three heroines, three energies, three stories:

- The Log Lady

- Audrey Horne

- Donna Hayward

This project was born out of my long-standing love for David Lynch’s world and the universe of the cult series "Twin Peaks". The preparation took more than a month - from gathering details to carefully considering the lighting and costume elements meant to convey the mood of each character.

The Black Samovar - an initially unexpected object - became a symbol, a center of gravity, an object of power. And here I would like to tell about how the Black Samovar became an integral part of my portrait journey...

2021 - peak lockdown, peak “what on Earth do we do at home?” I had just finished a course in creative photography. I bought my very first lights, turned my place into a mini studio, and started shooting everything and everyone around me. One day, down in the basement, I stumbled upon an old electric samovar. Not the most glamorous find, but I immediately knew...THIS THING is going to be a star. At first it was just a plain samovar (a bit too plain for my taste), so later I gave it a new life with a coat of black paint. Once it used to boil water for tea, now it boils ideas for photo shoots.

So I got the idea to introduce the Black Samovar into my "Twin Peaks" portrait series. Well, here I did not aim for literal quoting, but rather performed a kind of ritual of recreating the show’s atmosphere through my own visual interpretation…the feeling of a disturbing dream, temptation, inner tension, mythology, and the feminine image in a state of transformation. By the way, the model, without being familiar with the series, was able to channel the three heroines through herself, to feel them… So effortlessly, organically, in her own way.

2025 is the year we lost David Lynch - a genius of visual dreams, a filmmaker and artist who profoundly shaped my perception of color in photography. Until then, I had been working almost exclusively in black and white. I fell in love with color, and it’s thanks to Him. The warmth of red and the coolness of blue - that is harmony, yin and yang. One cannot exist without the other in those extraordinary cinematic worlds David Lynch gave us.