10 Favorite Photographs of Nikita Teryoshin

This photograph is from the Henhouse Hierarchy series that I did for my portfolio. In this series, I compared chicken society with human society. I attached this portfolio to my application when I applied to Dortmund University to study photography. Not to scare the hens, I lied on the ground and stayed still for some time. I took the photograph when they forgot about me.

A moth flew into my Berlin apartment. Before letting it go, I decided to use the opportunity and took several photos while holding a glass over it.

Dortmund station was being reconstructed, and this wall kept bothering me. I was on a metro train, looking at a sleeping man, and felt upset that my camera was not on me, but then I suddenly realized that I had it in my backpack. When I started taking pictures, the passenger next to me decided to see what was so interesting outside the window.

I was wandering around the flea market when I saw a pram filled with cheap German food where a baby was peacefully sleeping. I quickly went back and asked the father for permission to shoot.

For several years, I had a part-time job at a photo studio in an Internet store near Dusseldorf. It took me two hours to get there, I had to get up early in the morning and take a train with hundreds of other unfortunate burgher souls. I spent the whole day working, and after that I had no more light, inspiration, or energy. I bought a small Ricoh camera from my first salary and started taking photographs on the way, hoping this would prevent me from falling into depression entirely and hoping to catch an interesting shot.

From time to time, I take portraits of vinyl collectors for MINT magazine. Christian Koch, vocalist and guitarist at the iconic Dusseldorf psychedelic band Vibravoid, turned out to be a devoted fan of the 70s and a most interesting conversation partner. In his tiny room in an attic where with no light I put my flash to good use. For reasons that were beyond my control, the photograph did not make it to the issue.

In September this year, I went to the international defense exhibition that was held in suburban Poland. I wanted to take an inside look at the defense industry for my project Nothing Personal. On the very first day, I attended a closed presentation of French combat helicopters. I thought that the reception with expensive wine, canape, and combat machines was symbolic.

This photograph depicts part of the installation at the entrance to the Karstadt department store in Berlin which says ‘Welcome’.

For the past five years, I have been attending pet shows in Dortmund. This photograph is one of the many that I took there.

When the plane was descending, I suddenly saw our shadow on the clouds. I had an Olympus Mju on me, a camera that I just bought from a thrift shop for €2 a little while before my flight and hadn’t used before, with the film from the old owners left inside.