THE CITY
exhibition of works by photographer Den Batuev
I fell in love with this city. Right away, at first glance, from the first step. It doesn't look at all like my beloved New York. I consider New York my city, although I was born very far from it, across the ocean, in a tiny town in the wilderness of the Ural Mountains. All cities are different, and yet sometimes they are indistinguishable from each other. I like the narrow streets and the eternal wandering up and down, the sidewalks shining after the rain like waxed parquet. I like to look at the old city from above and from its very depths. All the old towns are close to me. The city I live in now has not yet become my home. And probably it won't, because I can't stop, I keep walking, wandering in the twilight, looking at the world through the viewfinder of my camera.
Three series of images are presented here: «Black and white», «Days», «Nights». All series are multi-exposure cameras. Several moments are collected in one frame. All the pictures were taken with a PENTAX camera.
Black and White
Several black-and-white, completely graphic, almost abstract works
Days
The city is mixed and confusing. In a hurry, crumbles into fragments, lives
Nights
The city is not sleeping, it is flying in the dark along the Milky Way. If you fall asleep, I'm afraid you'll never catch up with him again.
First episode. Black and White
This is a series about the city and the sky. About the huge plane trees that shed their leaves in winter. About the sky, which is far, far away. About clouds, they don't know anything about the boundaries drawn by people down here on earth.
Second episode. Day
These are the roofs of the old town. Old cities, like old people, are increasingly silent about themselves. Their silence is exactly what I need. It doesn't matter to me who once lived here or where. Thousands of people lived here before me and left a part of themselves to these streets. I don't know these people and I don't want to know about them now. I want to sort myself out. The old city is silent and remembers. I want to hear his silence.
Third Episode. Night
The night city is not the same as during the day. We look at the night city from the darkness, as if from the inside. The night city is the Milky Way. It flies with LED sparks along the dark embankment, gathers with colorful lights in squares, spreads through inconspicuous narrow streets and dissolves into the silence and darkness of the night. The night city belongs to people even less than the day city. The city cannot sleep, the city whispers. When it gets dark, when there are fewer cars and fuss, you can hear the whispers of the night city. Talk to him? Well, no. He doesn't want to talk to me. I am a light that is about to go out, one of a million restless lights. When I leave, the city won't notice. If I stay, the city won't know about it. And I do not know if I will leave or stand in silence for a while longer. A sip of rum, Denis Stelmakh in headphones, camera in hand.
My name is Den Batuev. I am a photographer, graphic designer and writer. I teach photography, write books and work with graphics: book design and layout, I help writers publish their books. Once I opened my own photo studio in Manhattan, recently I recorded a basic online photography course «12 steps to photography».
The material for this exhibition turned out to be completely spontaneous. I just shoot a lot of cities. The city is my eternal model. A city is not just streets, houses, infrastructure and a place to live. The city is an inorganic life, conscious, but completely incomprehensible to us. A city is an anthropogenic natural phenomenon. It seems to me that I was able to feel it and take it off. From the point of view of photography, I'm only interested in one attribute: beauty. I love the old beautiful cities. And I live with a camera in my hands.
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phone number: +79296050579
email: denis.batuev@yahoo.com