My Photography	<< Back to Press
I exist in the current world and have been involved with photography for nearly 29 years. I try to explore my own vision and the things around me. Every theme comes to me organically, like a new discovery from the old experience of my childhood or my youth, or from my reflections and feelings about current life. Sometimes, one grows out of another, expressing more significant things for me.
I take pictures, trusting myself, my intuition, my vision, my excitement, and my joy. Only after having looked at the small contact prints and having worked with every piece and series - printing, making the colour, putting prints together - do I try to understand what it is, what the reason was for taking these photos, what I love. I am used to working for a long time with every theme, creating photos simultaneously for different series - just as I used to read a couple of books together - putting them aside and coming back to the themes again when I find something new. I have special relationships with all my pieces...
I started to study photography at the photostudio of the House of Pioneers (the organisation for school children in the former Soviet Union) at the age of 15-16. I was deeply moved by my first experience with photos and wanted to study the art of photography after finishing school, but I could not because, in the former Soviet Union, and now, in Ukraine, there is no college or institution where you can study photography as an art. So, the technique and art of photography I have mastered from practice, from working in the photo laboratories and as a photographer in different institutions, from my friends who are photographers, and from books. I have read so much, especially when I began to run a photographic workshop for teenagers and youths at the photo studio, where I had worked for nearly 11 years. It was a very important time for me: teaching and studying myself. The tradition of photography in this country, the clubs of photo amateurs, which I attended in my youth, photography groups of which I was a member, and my colleagues, who also ran workshops for children and youth, have also, influenced me. These colleagues were most important for my creativity in photography. I have attended seminars, exhibitions, and meetings, which were arranged in the former Soviet Union, and I have taken part in competitions. I also studied the technology of making film and photo paper at the Institute of Cinema Engineers in Leningrad for 6 years and studied photojournalism in Kiev. So, I have tried to study photography everywhere it was possible to do so. And, of course, I have attended so many museums in different countries in recent years, which has enriched me very much. I am doing many things in black & white photography, which I prefer to colour.
I suppose that every one of us follows "self circles" through life; we are only given the freedom to move up or down with time; and the happiest person, I think, is the "wise child" in old age... I guess it is the same with creativity; if you look for yourself, you come to yourself...
I was born to a Jewish family, and have sensed from a very young age a difference between my relatives and those of other people around us. We also differed in our everyday life, in our language, and in our interrelations within the family. We were Soviet people, too soviet, but, as I understood later, very sensitive, because we were Jews... I have taken up my Jewish project only since 1985, the time of the so-called perestroika and it has been very important and organic for me. This major project entitled the "Jewish Album" is comprised of three extensive sections: "Family Album" - photos of the life of my own family and relatives; "Jews in Ukraine" - pictures testifying to the existence of Jewish life in former shtetls (small towns and villages); and "Emigrants" - photos of the life of Jewish emigrants in the USA, Germany and Israel. I have taken pictures for my "Family Album" for a long time and can not say that I have stopped. I am not satisfied now about the way I shaped this theme in 1987-88, and wish in the near future to reprint all the photos and to add some new ones, to shape them in a new way... It is a lot of work, of course, but very interesting. I have worked on the series "Jews in Ukraine, shtetls" since 1989, and up to the present point, I have travelled to and photographed 38 former shtetls, traditionally occupied by Jews. Where one shtetl has nothing left but the remains of Jewish cemeteries, the next is still the home for a few elderly Jews. In larger towns, there are resurging religious and cultural activities in the Jewish communities. However, looking at the current situation in Ukraine, I am very pessimistic. I photograph the remains and the disappearance of a unique culture of Jewish shtetls, which miraculously was able to survive after War II. It is disappearing before our eyes, as people now leave behind forever the places where their ancestors lived for hundred of years. I am continuing this shooting because its still excites me. I am working slowly with the series "Emigrants", because it is not so simple for me, living in Ukraine, to arrange the travels abroad for taking pictures of emigrants there. I have got an idea to photograph the Jewish emigrants just from the same places, shtetls, I photographed in Ukraine. But, of course, this work needs time. I began working on the "Emigrants" series in 1993, when I received a grant from Soros Foundation that enabled me to travel to the USA for once in my life. In 1997, I was in Israel for the first time in my life, where I photographed emigrants from Ukraine. I have visited Germany many times and taken pictures of emigrants there. But, there were some first steps and I have to take some more pictures. However, I would like not to be considered only a photographer of Jewish themes, considering the sensitivity of the "Jewish problem" in the world.
As I recall, I loved to observe the faces of people from my childhood. I remember how my parents, watching the small TV screen, talked - this face is sympathetic or not. When I started to take pictures at age 15-16, I tried to photograph the faces of people as close as possible, like I'd seen on our small screen, often shooting with the shortest distance possible (80cm from my small camera), using a special measuring tape and measuring this distance between the nose of the person that I was photographing and the camera. It was very funny and the people smiled at my method and me, but I did it very seriously, because I did not want to make a mistake with the distance. And it helped me to create a good mood throughout the shooting. I was involved in taking portraits of people for many years and went through a "romantic" period, and later, "psychological" and "realistic" periods. But I am changing, and my portraits of people are also not the same as they were before. I am looking longer and more contemplatively in recent times... I do not like the running images on the TV screen.
In the series "Nude-Portrait", I have put together different portraits of people, who are not models for me, but people that I know and who have confidence in me. As usual, shooting the portraits, I am enjoying very much, and the people I am photographing, feel easy before the camera and do not embarrass even though they are naked. Everything should be very organic and tender, without any falsehood. I have seen so many photos of beautiful naked women in the photos by male photographers. Some of them are so sweet. I never wanted to do the same. For me, the person is very important, as are all other things, of course. Everybody can be beautiful, like a special creation of God, - it only depends on the vision...
In my youth, I did not like to look at still life in museums and did not feel the beauty of the classical still life even in photography. It seems very strange to me now, because I've changed so much. But maybe when I found what was more attractive to me, I also started to see other things... I do not know.
I remember how much I loved to look in my childhood at glass and through glass, at windows, at walls, discovering images everywhere. Frankly speaking, I like to meditate the same way now...
The series "My Home" is my discovery of the beauty of ordinary objects which exist around me: how wonderful the piece of cheese on the rude brown paper in the morning, or the basin with the cherry jam, or the jars washed for this jam, or the ordinary drops of water from the jars, or fish in the old basin from aluminium, or my window in the kitchen, which I have photographed many times, or the wet floor from old linoleum, before, during and after the washing, or many other things, which "live" their own life... I was so fascinated by this shooting that I did not tire from my housework during that time. I suppose the bed is a very interesting object for taking pictures: it can look like a sculpture from a cast, or hills, or something else, sometimes warm, sometimes cold... Maybe I'll make a separate series about the bed. The series "My Home" comprises "stories" about the kitchen, the cloth, the bed, the window, the repair in our apartment, and many other things, which I can not designate somehow. It is not exactly a "still" life of my home, it is rather a living life of my Home...
When I was in the USA in 1993, the only time in my life, I attended the Metropolitan museum of Art in New York and saw the Japanese garden, which fascinated me very much. I never forget the cubic stone with the flowing water: I stared for a long time and could not stop staring... It seems to me that my series the "Breath of life", the series about powers began from this. I remember, after long reflection, the idea came to me: the meditation reminded me of a long exposure in photography. How long can the images of moving trees from the wind, or running water, or the live power of the sea exist in our inner vision, if we close our eyes and leave this place? What images can we see before our eyes and how is it possible to express this vision and the emotions which embrace us when we observe such powers within photography?... I have begun to attempt to photograph with a long exposure, investigating new technical and creative possibilities. I know it is not a short path, and I am working with this series and am involved deeply. The series "Breath of Life" is comprised of 4 parts: Trees, Wind, Water, and Fire.
I love to observe and to take pictures from my windows of the same trees in different seasons. We have been living for more then 36 years in this apartment on the fourth floor, and the trees in front of our house have already grown up, or died, but they live a special life. These Trees represent the first part of this series. It may look funny, but most of the pictures of the "Wind" I have also taken from my windows... But Water, "live water", comprises pictures from the rain, fountains, the river, and the sea. Working with this series, I have gone through so many discoveries. For example, I have gone hundreds of times near the fountains in the centre of town. One day I saw something that I wanted to photograph. Then I came with my camera more than once and shot the fountains. It is so simple - the running water and nothing else... It was so interesting to shoot... But I have seen this place so many times before, going to and from work for a couple of years. I even took photos, but I never approached water like now...
For a long time I was not able to photograph anything for Fire. I have instinctively feared to "approach" to fire, because even very small fire is dangerous. Fire is a symbol of life and death. We all together are not able to exist without fire, but fire easily destroys all the material in the World. Everything, which only touches fire, becomes black. Fire is the "red flower" from the fairy tales, the everything eating up fire is a blue fire, the vital yellow-orange fire, giving up warm and food, is fire from fireplace or oven, and holy white fire, giving light and purity on to our souls... There are so many colours in fire...
All my thoughts- meditations I try to express through the pictures I am taking up of Trees, Wind, Water or Fire and its really very special shooting.
The next series called, "The bodies' faces", is a series of portraits. The idea is very simple: the torsos of people look like their faces, are the second face of the person. I have been working with this theme only a bit more than a year and am very involved. It started from one photo: I took a picture for the series "Nude-Portrait" of an interesting young woman, and then, looking at the print, saw so clearly her body like a face. I showed this photo to some of my friends, trying to bring their attention to this, but they did not understand me. Then I started to work with my negatives and found some interesting "faces" from the shootings, which I had done before. I am also taking new portraits for this series, but not as many as I'd like. I see much that is profound, looking at these bodies-faces, putting together couples - wife and husband, mother and daughter, father and son, and different ones together. Sometimes it is so strange... I do not even feel an erotic aspect: only faces and faces... These images remind me of the song from my childhood: "point, point, comma, minus - a crooked face"... The real torsos of people on the photos are special "abstract" faces...
I love to take pictures, but I also like to print new photos and make different colours for each picture. Everything is important: the colour, the frame, the quality of photo paper, and the size of the photos. I remember how much time I spent trying to find a certain small size and colours for the series "My Home": I have taken pictures for this series since 1985, but only in 1994-1995 did I make prints which satisfied me. I prefer to work with matt paper, because there is such a "flavour" of matt paper in black & white photography. I like sepia tone and I used it for most of my pictures from the "Jewish Album" and "Nude-Portrait". The colour blue, which I found for wind, water and fire is extremely important for me: I have printed and made the colour blue for these pictures because it was so obvious to me. Then, reading the literature about Jewish meditation, I discovered the contemplation of the "colour blue" represented in the Talmud, and I was very happy that I had intuitively felt this.
I am still living in Kiev, Ukraine, in the "poor-rich" country, where most of the ordinary people are humiliated by poverty, where life is tough, and everybody tries to exist somehow. For me - My Photography - is my light and shadow, my dreams and reflections, my hard work and joy, my Breath...
Rita Ostrovskaya. My Photography. Katalog, Journal of Photography & Video. Odense, Denmark. Spring 1998.
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