06 / 05 / 2026   

🎈 The color of my mood is red.

For years, I shot on a clean 35 mm. It’s a wonderful focal length for visual storytelling about space and people, but to focus more on, say, the people themselves, it’s worth using 50 mm.

That’s exactly what I’ll try using in my shooting throughout the summer — let’s see how it goes.

05 / 05 / 2026    

— Free walking.
—?
— I’m performing a reflexive fluctuation within an anthropogenic landscape, converting visual perception into static matrix-based artifacts.
—???
— I’m just walking around the city and taking photos.

04 / 05 / 2026    

This is exactly what May 4th looks like in Voronezh. 

And to see all this authentic magnificence, you don’t need to leave the city  — it’s enough to just go wherever your eyes take you. In Voronezh, all roads lead to the private sector, and that’s wonderful.

 A couple of hours ago, I heard geese behind someone’s wooden fence joyfully cackling in praise of the sun and spring, heard hoes loosening the soil, and barrels being filled with water for watering. 

In today’s world, that’s worth a lot.

02 / 05 / 2026   

— Oh great, here we go!
— What’s happening?
— Everything’s starting.

12 / 04 / 2026  

April 12 coincided with Cosmonautics Day and Easter.

12 / 04 / 2026  

From the spring wanderings

11 / 04 / 2026  

A poetographic sketch inspired by the poetry of Alexander Blok:

“O spring, without end and without edge…”

_______

I was doing a spontaneous inventory of my files and remembered that I shot this video back in the spring of 2023.

Yes, there is something strange about perceiving your own work later on. You realize that you always did everything right, that only clouds, birds, and the inner flight truly matter.

Everything else is sheer junk of life, the closet of everyday routine, from which, every now and then, fall out bits of news, lamps with cats, or the weed seeds of a dark forest—things that give nothing and bring nothing forth. For the most part, it’s just routine nonsense that persuades you to live by the rules of pointless endless consumption—and when you look back, years have gone into it.

And it’s frightening that you will inevitably forget all of this, that you will grow into something that makes you not yourself, alien to your own reflection; yet in the middle of some empty conversation, you suddenly freeze as images flicker through your mind like a kaleidoscope, like a map you’ve remembered after being lost for a long time.

Only on a thoughtful, rainy evening does the singing water wash away everything superficial, leaving the essential, the only important things—clouds, birds, inner flight. And only then do you understand that that closet of daily life exists precisely so that, pushing through mountains of clutter—through work and worries, traffic jams and constant rushing—you might suddenly find yourself, call out to yourself, bring yourself outside.

And what is shown there? There are long clouds and high-flying birds, which neither realized nor ever will realize that beneath them something was rustling so tensely, trying to appear the center of the universe.

Clouds, birds, inner flight. Stay the course, ignore the trivial. Because in truth, nothing else exists. And if I am wrong—then where is all the rest? 

Only the birds and the sky remain.

10 / 04 / 2026 

One day, the city wanted to give its streets to dreamers for one single night, unnoticed by anyone else. Just like that — so that they could finally wander in silence through the streets and courtyards. But how to do this without anyone noticing?.. 

And then the city came up with cold spring rains.

10 / 04 / 2026

Weather Category 'A': A rainy evening in a cold spring.”

25 / 03 / 2026

One of the oldest spring traditions in Voronezh is to make your way, toward evening, to the Chernavsky Bridge.

I was lucky to join this aesthetic ritual today. As always, I thought there wouldn’t be a single decent shot—but then you look, and—oh—there’s something.

It’s wonderful, but once I start shooting, it becomes hard to stop: I forget I was doing anything else at all. And if you were to read me someone’s incredible poetry at that moment—I would hardly hear it. Before my eyes, marvelous lights and colors drift by; I’m no longer thinking in words.

Yes. I should probably try to shift into other modes of creating. For now, I have more than enough photographs; they need to be realized in some larger project—I don’t yet know which one (that’s a lie, I do know, I just never have the time)—at the very least, I need to sort through all of them.

I love everything I do, and I have no idea where to find even another 700–800 years to grasp everything that interests me.

Photography is closest to poetry: you don’t know what will happen, but everything already exists in life—you just have to see, hear, and say it.

💾  23 / 03 / 2026

Winter Nights
As part of the fantastic program “Sort All the Photos at Once”

22 / 03 / 2026

Meanwhile, on the spring streets.

I’ve finally figured out how to shoot properly to achieve maximum light and color.

Download links

How it looks

I recommend downloading the EPUB version — it is optimized for mobile phones as well.

18 / 03 / 2026

Мы на бессмертье цифровое,
Здесь все уже обречены,
Но в нём не теплится живое —
В бессмертье этом все мертвы.

И между трендом или брендом,
Между «купи» или «продай»,
Висят распятые легенды
О дальних марсовых садах.

И мы, потомки космонавтов,
Тоскуем по сиянью звёзд.
Там высоко — живая правда,
Там всё задумано всерьёз.

💾  17 / 03 / 2026

Ночи зимы

из архива за 2024–2026 год

 16 / 03 / 2026  

We continue to observe the spring city.

Perhaps not everyone notices it, but in spring the light truly becomes different — it gains a palpable strength. It ripens, awakening from beneath the white snow of the sky. A strength so tangible that, as you pass by, you can feel warmth radiating from the walls.

Toward evening, special moments of this culmination appear. At such times I completely forget that I am also supposed to press the shutter. It is simply a pleasure to walk and watch how the light creates images. In the broken language of shop-window reflections, it tells the story of a new March.

We ourselves are reflections of light. Photography, quite literally, means “writing with light” in Latin, and a photographer — like any human being — is one who, for thousands of years, has been searching for the best place beneath it.

 16 / 03 / 2026 

Today was a beautiful, sun-filled day—so long that it almost seemed as if the sun had no intention of setting, as though something were gently holding it back. 

I’m beginning to explore these new places more closely: 9 January Street and Truda Avenue. 

The courtyards are quite intriguing. There is still much to wander through and discover.

 14 / 03 / 2026

Me: Just trying to get home this evening. 

Beauty everywhere you look: Pssst, hey buddy, want to buy some photos?

 11 / 03 / 2026     

What can you shoot in three hours in the city?

Quite a lot, actually. Yesterday I stepped out for a short while into the real world. The spring sun is in no hurry now — no longer the indifferent sphere that only recently looked down on our everyday life with cold detachment. It plays, it rejoices, it paints light in the alleyways, it runs along the reflections in the puddles. Everything around fills with color and life.

Where should you go? Best to go wherever your eyes lead you. You look at everything like an unspoiled tourist. What’s in this courtyard? And in that one? Everything feels different. You hardly recognize the streets as they shrug off their snowy half-coats.

And even if you take no photos — that’s fine. Let it be so. Simply seeing is already a kind of happiness. You may tell no one, perhaps capture nothing at all — and yet secret wonders are shown to you anyway.

And what did I see? A lot. How an alphabet of shadows appears on fences. How the spring waters run downhill in waves, as if it were some kind of transport line carrying water along.

Whether you tell others about these wonders is up to you. But they will remain wonders all the same, even if you reveal them.

 08  / 03 / 2026   

If you gathered all the artists of the planet and gave them just one day to realize their vision, they would turn that day into art.

Life is a work of art — a monumental exhibition, a museum of reality that simply never informed you that you are part of the display.

And if you look at it as a boundless exhibit, an ever-changing painting, much becomes visible. We stand in a shining hall, and above us the planets revolve.

Our time passes, and after it comes the time of others. They too will enter these cosmic halls, cautiously looking around, not fully understanding why all of this exists.

This is all about us and for us.

Only we are capable of recognizing beauty — of turning the spring wind into a firework of colors, of loving the unimaginable, the incomprehensible.

Right now we are at a point marked as March 8, 2026. 

That is the physics of reality, but there is also its metaphysics. For example, we can all travel through time.

And it is hard to believe that an ordinary camera is one of humanity’s most magnificent inventions.

Just think about it: metal crumbles, ancient cities turn to dust over the centuries, we ourselves are flying somewhere on this planet without quite knowing where — yet any photograph can show all of it from the outside. Time is inside it, but in another form. Without the excess, without our superficial bustle. Time as a fact.

You probably know that I never hurry to go through what I’ve shot. But today I suggest looking at the spring that was two years ago. An unimaginable mass of events has already passed since those frozen moments, yet they remain. Signs have changed, we have grown older, but facts remain facts.

Forty photographs of the Voronezh spring of 2024.

Travel through time. Admire the wonders that are everywhere: reflections in puddles, flowers in shop windows, the very possibility of living and seeing.

Of course, there will also be minutes of gloom and boredom, routine will come — but do not forget where you are. And that will save and preserve the sharpness of your perception.

This exhibition will hardly last for us longer than a hundred years. Whether it is poems, photographs, or simply a glance — everything begins with an inner light capable of dancing.

They say talented people are talented in everything. There is a reason for that: this light takes different forms. If you remember it, it will find thousands of incarnations.

Some will say that all this is just beautiful words. Fine. But then what are we all doing here? What is the meaning of it? Just like that, by itself?

No. If we created pyramids and starships, it means there is a secret fire within us that illuminates galaxies. With the torch of thought and aspiration we will uncover the mysteries of the night sky.

Such is the path.

We are limited by biology, by the mechanics of our bodies, but always, for centuries, we have looked at distant stars and known that we are made of their shimmering dust.

And you are alive — and everything is art.

 07  / 03 / 2026  

🌷  On the seventh of March he wandered through the city, sensing that the light had already changed entirely. He took pleasure in photographing the sparkling puddles, the long, living shadows, the sunlit streets, the smiling faces of passersby.

The very fabric of space seemed to sing solemnly that winter was over, and he thought that perhaps there was no need to feel sad when everything around him was rejoicing like this. After all, this holiday must have been created for a reason—could one really pass it by without noticing? 

02 / 03 / 2026 

— What’s the best shutter speed for a photo?
— 1/365.

Spring has arrived, and at last I’ve sorted through last year’s spring archives. You’ll see the Left and Right Banks, the legendary courtyards of Mashmet, the Washermen’s Quarter, even Utochkina Street — along with other sunlit streets of Voronezh.

By now, you’ve probably noticed it yourself: the light has changed. It’s higher, more ceremonial. You can wander without fear of frostbite — though this winter, that was a real possibility. But that’s behind us now. You can continue, or begin anew. Anything is possible.

I’m waiting for those days too. When the camera becomes a compass, guiding the eyes toward the heart. Just a little longer — and the golden evenings will arrive, young lime-green leaves will spill into the courtyards, warm winds will rise, and reflections will shimmer in shop windows.

Everything will come. And everything will be just fine.