Portfolio: Vic Bakin

— I started taking photographs of my friends and everything I saw around me. At first, I didn’t understand what I want to capture and what needs to be cut. I didn’t like the results, and I gave up photography almost as soon as I took it up. It was even more difficult to start the second time around.

One way or the other, my photographs show, if not people, then the traces they leave behind, whether it is the architecture of the cities, automobile tracks on the field, or a white swan, who accidentally ended up in an industrial part of the channel in London. However, most often I photograph people themselves.

As far as I remember, my pictures have always featured nudity to some extent. The very idea that somebody takes their clothes off is exciting already, and the way the camera studies the body with the help of light is fascinating.

I would not take pretentious photographs. I always try for my photographs to remain simple, natural, and true. I have never captured weddings or love stories. Although I think I would have done it my way.

I think there is no such thing as ‘obligation’ when it comes to art. Why would anybody be obliged to watch photographs by Herbert List? The human brain is built so that it would enjoy art.

Photography for me is also one of the instruments of cognition. Getting to know the world in nonverbal form. I am curious if my photographs cause the same response in other people as it does in me (sometimes not immediately, but after an extended period of time). This is an experiment of sorts. I think this is enough to publish a photograph. On the other hand, this is a personal diary: some photographs I don’t feel like sharing. They are the visualization of certain moments of life, snapshots of memories.

I don’t even have to ask my friends or people who I am comfortable with to flash their rear on camera. This is like a part of the game, part of life. But I don’t take photographs of rear ends as often as I’d prefer.

Youth is energy and liveliness. I find a lot of response namely in youth: energy, personal interest, and excitement. This is what surrounds me now, too. And if we talk about physical youth, this is something that is further and further away every day. I think that the realization about having entered middle age a long time ago only makes the attachment to the cult of youth stronger.

Who knows? Maybe with time, people I photograph will become older, just like I myself am becoming older. Time will show.