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The Dep River, Russia, 2008

Here on the Dep River I learned to swim, to fish and to assemble a kayak of the type Taimen. Almost every year my parents and I “conquered” that route which, in fact, was for women and children — “a zero one” according to the complexity rank. Now, in seven years, I still recognize the familiar bends, reaches, hills and cliffs. This is the place where, years ago, a stormy gust overturned my Dad’s kayak, and that is the the very spit where I competed with my brother in throwing cobblestones in the game “who can throw farthest”. Then we invented another game with the funny name “Plop-and-splosh” (in Russian it sounds like “bulk-and-plukh”). The stone, which was thrown at a certain angle to the water surface, would come into the water with a dull sound and without any splashes but a bit later  bubbles and bow waves would show up on the surface – this was a plop (in Russian “bulk”). We used to thow until our shoulders started to ache with tiredness.

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Corners

Here in Auckland, there is a retirement village in my neighborhood. The village consists of a mere few oblong and stocky blocks of flats. Almost every evening, when I return home from work I pass those one-roomed cells shut off from the external world by plastic sliding doors. Near one of the flats there is an old useless TV set which practically melts into the background in the gentle shadow of a nearby tree. The TV set is there in the rain and in the heat, very beautiful, almost like in the “American Beauty”.

It seems to me, now I start to realize why I used to admire photos by Stephen Shore. He was the first photographer in the world having exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art inter vivos. A year ago I kept  the browser window with his works in sight trying to understand why they seemed so much special.

I don’t know about you but I am often attracted by the harmony of static scenes being, as one would think, quite ordinary. It can be soft light, geometry of lines, a combination of colors, a combination of textures, or all said above in one. I mark such photos with purple tag. They represent a space for the lively play of fancy, the scenery for imaginary situations and characters. This is the way to obtain photos without  people involved. No faces at all. The time-space, which has been stopped in a photo and fixed as it was, does not notice anything and continues its own existence. You are watching a film where static actors are shot on a static camera but there is no doubt that they are alive.

2. Auckland, New Zealand

3. Zeya, Russia

4. Zeya, Russia

5. Zeya, Russia

6. Heihe, China

 

7. Guangzhou, China

8. Kathmandu, Nepal

9. Nanchang, China

10. Zeya, Russia

11. Guangzhou, China

12. Katmandy, Nepal

13. Guangzhou, China

14. Zeya, Russia

15. Pekin (Beijing), China

16. Pekin (Beijing), China

17. Novosibirsk, Russia

18. Hong Kong, China

19. Zeya, Russia

20. Zeya, Russia

21. Zeya, Russia

22. Harbin, China

23. Blagoveschensk, Russia

24. Shenyang, China

25. Shenyang, China

26. Shenyang, China

27. Shenyang, China

28. Pekin (Beijing), China

29. The Great Wall of China

30. Pekin (Beijing), China

31. Pekin (Beijing), China

32. Xiamen, China

33. Xiamen, China

34. Xiamen, China

35. Xiamen, China

36. Guangzhou, China

37. Guangzhou, China

38. Guangzhou, China

39. Guangzhou, China

40. Guangzhou, China

41. Shenzhen, China

42. Shenzhen, China

43. Guangzhou, China

44. Shenzhen, China

45. Hong Kong, China

46. Hong Kong, China

47. Macau, China

48. Macau, China

49. Hong Kong, China

50. Hong Kong, China

51. Macau, China

52. Macau, China

53. Macau, China

54. Macau, China

55. Macau, China

56. Macau, China

57. Shenzhen, China

58. Macau, China

59. Macau, China

60. Macau, China

61. Macau, China

62. Hanoi, Vietnam

63. Hoi An, Vietnam

64. Macau, China

65. Macau, China

66. Shenzhen, China

67. Nanning, China

I would modestly remind you that any of the above photos you can get for private use (for your desktop or  wallpaper), if you apply at the following address

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