If I were writing the story of how this photograph and the other images from this series were born, I would begin like this:

 

"Every Saturday, our family gathers with our close friends in the sauna. It is an old family tradition rooted deeply in the past of our ancestors. But that evening, something unusual happened. I invited my hot sauna guests into a small performance I had imagined for a very long time...

Since childhood, I had been fascinated by vinyl covers. I could spend hours looking at their faces, imagining their personalities, stories, and destinies. Years later, I began collecting records myself, and together with that collection came a desire to give the characters from those covers a chance to live their lives once again.

Vinyl covers merged with human bodies, and an ordinary gathering unexpectedly turned into a game of imagination. While also becoming a reflection of the roles we inherit or choose for ourselves.”

For me, portraiture is rarely just about a person’s appearance. It is more about the invisible space that forms around the subject. Most ideas come from observation: accidental light, gestures, objects, or human interaction. I love when photography leaves room for intuition, play, and surprise.

I am inspired by artists who create their own worlds. I feel especially inspired by Sarah Moon, Tim Walker, Rodney Smith, and David Stewart for their poetry, theatricality, and sense of visual magic. But painting, music, cinema, books, and surrealism influence me just as deeply.

Usually, I begin with an emotional feeling of the future image, and more and more I am learning to feel it through my body. The most important things almost always appear during the shoot itself - through accident, humor, movement, human unpredictability, and sometimes even strangeness. Very often, the unplanned moments become the most alive and truthful ones.

Black and white photography removes everything unnecessary and makes emotion louder! Without color, the viewer feels shape, gaze, gesture, and emotional tension more deeply. In “Vinyl Souls,” the black-and-white approach helped transform different people into one shared surreal space.

I think this happens when the person in the frame becomes a metaphor through which the viewer recognizes something personal. The emotional response appears not because we are familiar with the subject, but because the image touches a memory inside us.

In my case, that connection became vinyl records. People rarely listen to them now, yet for many they are still connected to childhood, the atmosphere of the past, and family memories. Perhaps this is where the true strength of photography reveals itself. When something deeply personal becomes a shared feeling for other audiences.

Right now, I’m especially interested in the idea of a visual code. The way images begin to live within collective memory and evoke recognizable feelings in people. This summer, I want to explore how an artist can work with familiar visual language and transform it into something deeply personal and authorial.