:: Art Photography from Belarus :: Uladzimir Parfianok ::

• fragments of being (1987-1988)

My early works from the late '80s gravitated to so-called direct photography. We, young Belarusian photographers, penetrated into the secrets of photographic craft, hunting for exhibitions of the out-door reality. People on the streets were open and non-agressive. A man with a camera was an integral part of the cityscape. Photographing street life really favoured us. It was the time of the heyday of subjective photodocumentation versus staged photographs in official newspapers. To take pictures from inside the event, to become comletely disappeared into the situation were considered as the apex of a photographer's mastership.

Some of my pictures from that time were taken in the tideway of Cartier-Bresson's method of the decisive moment (but, it is truth, I heard about the method much more later). Fragments of Being series (1987-88), in which scenes of urban life have paradoxically interlaced with fragments of primitive and exotic decor of a Soviet street, summarize my creative searchings of that time.

Unfortunately, recent screen presentation of the series disagrees with its exhibition version from 1987-88 in which pictures were organized in triades. The fact is not all pictures from the series were restored and some pictures could not pass a test of time. Besides that, I have decided to add some pictures created in 1989-90 in the same way. But nevertheless, the majority of pictures from this page still emits unsupportable easiness of our (or my?) photographic being which characterized late 80s.


	• fragments of being (1987-1988) My early works from the late '80s gravitated to so-called direct photography. We, young Belarusian photographers, penetrated into the secrets of photographic craft, hunting for exhibitions of the out-door reality. People on the streets were open and non-agressive. A man with a camera was an integral part of the cityscape. Photographing street life really favoured us. It was the time of the heyday of subjective photodocumentation versus staged photographs in official newspapers. To take pictures from inside the event, to become comletely disappeared into the situation were considered as the apex of a photographer's mastership. Some of my pictures from that time were taken in the tideway of Cartier-Bresson's method of the decisive moment (but, it is truth, I heard about the method much more later). Fragments of Being series (1987-88), in which scenes of urban life have paradoxically interlaced with fragments of primitive and exotic decor of a Soviet street, summarize my creative searchings of that time. Unfortunately, recent screen presentation of the series disagrees with its exhibition version from 1987-88 in which pictures were organized in triades. The fact is not all pictures from the series were restored and some pictures could not pass a test of time. Besides that, I have decided to add some pictures created in 1989-90 in the same way. But nevertheless, the majority of pictures from this page still emits unsupportable easiness of our (or my?) photographic being which characterized late 80s.


		Uladzimir Parfianok. From the series "Fragments of Being". Memories of the Past. Minsk		Uladzimir Parfianok. From the series "Fragments of Being". Untitled. Vilnius

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