Hello dear friends,

Why not start the beginning of the week with discovering another Master of photography?

I’ve mentioned him in some of my previous blog posts and signified the influence he had on my photography in the past few months. In this post I’d like to offer you some more information on the photographer as well as his influences and views on life and photography. I’m talking about Gueorgui Pinkhassov.

A Moscow born photographer is the only Russian member of Magnum Photos. He began his interest in photography in his teens and after studying in the Institute of Cinematography, he later worked as a photographer on film sets.

His view on photography has changed when he met a cult Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky on a set of “Stalker” who saw something special in Pinkassov and advised him to take on journalistic photography while sticking to his photographic views and principles.

In the late 70’s Pinkassov’s work was noticed outside Russia and in 1988 he was accepted in the Magnum Photo Agency in Paris.

This is the first photo of Pinkhassov i saw.

I found it in a mini Magnum book which lists all the members of the agency, and later decided to find out more about the photographer. the more photos I looked at the more fascinating I found his work to be.

(Being Russian, I was able to find and go through some interviews with Pinkhassov on youtube. Some of them are not translated into English so I’ll try to do my best and write down the essential parts about this artist)

In one of the interviews Pinkhassov compares a photographer to a moth. “A moth is attracted by the light just like a photographer always looks for the light to play a role in the image he wants to capture”.

He finds these magical cinematic moments in everyday life, influenced by the light and shadows. His images often remind me of paintings. He likes to fill the frame, and when at first I thought the photographs looked too busy, later I discovered the beauty and wanted to desperately watch the photographer in action and understand his view and workflow.

In his early photographic years Pinkhassov experimented with portraiture, desperately trying to understand how to transfer a certain feeling into an image. He couldn’t find an answer. Later he got interested in geometry and tried to implement a cinematic feel of whatever he was seeing in front of him. Tarkovsky’s films were the main influence.

Pinkhassov started working in black and white and later moved to colour photography while using Kodachrome

Here is a short promotional video for Fuji X-E1, but I’m not interested in a camera he uses, I’m paying attention to his workflow, check it out

Here is a video of Pinkhassov and his reportage on Korea

This is a video essay on Georgia, a beautiful photographic poetry

And finally I will leave you with a few articles featuring this artist.

Pinkhassov on Telegraph, and an article form The Guardian where the photographer talks about one of his most famous images.

Don’t forget to follow Pinkhassov on Instagram for daily inspiration!

I hope you enjoy discovering this artist just as I did a few months ago. I can surely tell you, he made me look at the world differently and for that I’m very thankful.

Thank you for sticking around and till next time

Yuri