Out of time

"I took this photo in 2018 in the city of Drohobych – a city of regional significance in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. As I was passing by the open door of a hair salon, I noticed this woman going through a hairdressing procedure. A hairdresser was bustling around her, and it was impossible to simply pass by this scene. The challenge of such shots is to not frighten away the "moment". So I went into the establishment, started a casual conversation with the salon employee, while watching the protagonist of the photo shoot. Having become part of the environment, I remained to capture the decisive moment.

This is one of the first shots that formed the basis of my Out of Time series. I travelled through Ukraine to work on this series, and I tried to show the viewer that in some places time seems to have stalled in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Mostly, these places are the legacy of the Soviet regime, which seems to have taken root on a subconscious level, and continues a life of its own, despite the economic, cultural and social changes going on around it. So basically, Out of Time is a project about a past that should have been erased by the present...

The use of an analogue camera for this project was extremely important to me, as the film itself became part of the project concept. My emphasis on this theme, combined with the analogue photography process, resulted in a very special timelessness.”