Ukraine in the Shadows:
Pavel Guryev’s Mobilography

— My series called The Ukrainians is first of all an attempt to answer for myself whether anything has changed recently in the everyday life of the Ukrainian people. I don’t take photographs about the military actions in the east of the country, politics, and so on. My photographs capture everyday life. I am not a professional documentary photographer. Street photography is my hobby, so I shoot when I have time and money. I will probably be able to answer the question what this series is about only when I realize that I took the final shot that completes it.

In 2014, there was probably a breaking point and one of the most important moments for me as a photographic artist. There was a time when I was reluctant to lay my hands on a camera. Looking for inspiration, I accidentally found an article about an international collective of street photographers who take pictures on mobile phones — Tiny Collective. I was so amazed with the quality of their photographs that the next day I bought a camera phone and set out to shoot. I got so drawn into it that I sold all my other photographic equipment and since then have been taking only mobile photographs — with an iPhone 5 + hipstamatic app. This turned out to be the most convenient and the best camera for me. Taking pictures on a mobile, I gained inner freedom, the invisibility in the streets that I wanted so much. The style of my photographs, my photographic perception, and approach to choosing stories have also changed.

I live in Kharkiv, but in 2015 I spent half a year in Lviv, on the other side of the country. It is a wonderful city, it inspires you to shoot a lot. When I was about to go back to Kharkiv, the hard drive where I stored all my photographs was damaged. I managed to restore only a small portion of the entire archive of my photographs: the last ones that I took in Kharkiv before leaving and the first one I took upon my arrival to Lviv. After a short-lived panic, I decided to unite them into one joint series and call it The Ukrainians.

After that, the geography of the series expanded. I have made an effort to go to other cities and spend at least several days taking pictures there. So, it was all definitely for the best. Had I not lost almost my entire archive, it may be that the series would not have come to life. Besides, I was just curious if I could shoot a large-scale series entirely on a mobile.

I have loved observing the world around me since early childhood, that’s why all of my photographs are an interpretation of what I saw, a combination of my perception of the world and the environment. It is also a great means of self-growth. When you realize you are shooting something mundane, you start going deeper, searching for the truth. You can search for it inside yourself or in the outside world, literature, music — it is different for everyone.

When it comes to The Ukrainians, I try to be as impartial as I can. I don’t have a goal to present the nation in negative light or praise it. I capture the things as they are: the humor, the traces of human activity in urban environment — and I try not to interfere with the natural course of things. Only time will show, what my photographs will draw attention to, if they will.