Alexey Titarenko

Untitled (Woman on the Corner)
From the Black and While Magic series


Untitled (Woman with Umbrella)
From the Black and White Magic series


Last week I posted about the Photography show, AIPAD. Well, I felt that that show was so good I wanted to do another post on it.

My visit at the exhibition was such a success that I went a second time. The second visit was much different experience than the first, because since I had seen all of the booths the first day, I wasn't all that concerned about trying to visit each aisle. I found myself focusing in on the booths and photographs that were most intriguing to me, which resulted in me spending more time at just a few selected stall's. One of the exhibits that I found myself drawn to was that of the photographer Alexey Titarenko represented by the Nailya Alexander Gallery.

The Russian who began photographing in the 70's really knows how to capture Russia's dark dreary atmosphere. While using a slow shutter speed from 3 seconds to 3 minutes he is able to create these ghost like images, adding more of the dark creepy quality to the already shadowy, dark subjects. Some of his photos come across a bit sinister, like the one below from his City of Shadows series. These dark photographs that were taken in the early 1990's in St. Petersburg captures the times of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He describes this time as feeling empty, and the people seemed to be wandering shadows. One of the things that I like about his photographs is that they look and have a feeling of vintage, or antique. Yes, the black and white/gray adds to this, but also the cityscape of St. Petersburg is just frozen in time, along with the people, style and automobiles, which was a result of their political reality.




Nailya Alexander, the gallery owner was such a doll and spent a lot of time with me, describing Alexey's technique and giving me his back story. She currently has some great photographs in her possession.

http://www.nailyaalexandergallery.com/

http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/