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Memories for sale

Text and Photos: ©Kirill Surov

I have been always fascinated by unpredictable metaphysical qualities of the candid photography. The combination of light, form and subject transforms into something new on the flat surface of a photographic print. The quest for a successful shot becomes an adventure by itself. On the other hand still life images are produced mostly in a highly controlled environment where a photographer defines all the parameters of the composition and light. I decided to try to fuse these two disciplines together.

The theme for the series was suggested during one my photo sessions at antiques market. While walking between vendors offering fragments of the past I saw a face of a beautiful woman looking at me from the wilted old photograph. It was uncomfortably inappropriate for somebody's memories to be for sale and to be traded the same way as the rest of the antique merchandise. I was deeply touched and decided to offer a new life for those sold memories. Since then the boundaries of the main theme blurred a bit, I included some objects with the faces from the past, but the idea remained the same - candid still life portrait photographs in which almost nothing is under control except for the frame composition.