About me

I grew up in Kazakhstan, in a small, unremarkable town in the 1990s—a time when most people were struggling to survive. There was no place for beauty.

On the day I turned ten, my aunt noticed my fascination with an old camera. She had probably found it somewhere and had no use for it. For my birthday present, she gave me a choice: a rare and very popular piece of clothing or the camera.

I had never held a camera before and didn’t know how to use one. And I didn’t know anyone who could teach me how to take pictures. But my fascination for this “strange thing” wouldn’t let me go. To everyone’s irritation and ridicule I chose the camera as my birthday present.

Unfortunately, it remained unused.

It wasn’t until twenty years later that I bought another camera. My love of photography seemed to reappear out of nowhere, and it has stayed with me ever since.

Since 2019, I have photographed landscapes only. I recover in quiet places, with rain passing over the ground, snow laying over it, fog softens every unnecessary detail. I lose myself there, in a soft, beautiful melancholy.