Fan­ta­sy

In this exhibition I present three themes: Elephants, Fat Girl and Fantasies.

Topic: “Elephants”

When I worked for the circus, I became friends with the famous Dementiev-Cornilov family of elephant trainers and was lucky enough to do a photoshoot with their wonderful elephants. The trainer, Andrei Kornilov, has a little daughter who's only 1,5 months old. She wasn't afraid of the elephants at all, and Andrei helped me take a picture of his daughter hugging a large elephant. Nobody believes it's not a Photoshop job – but it's a real photo.

I worked with four elephants and developed several photo stories. In this exhibition, I would like to show some of the most successful photographs. Working with elephants as photographic models is very difficult.

Topic: “Fat Girl”

I have a favorite model: the beautiful Victoria, who lives in Odessa, Ukraine. Whenever I come to Odessa in the summer, I always try to take new photos with Victoria. She has a great sense of humor – so we're most successful at creating funny stories.

Theme: “Fantasies”

Fairytale characters are another favorite theme of mine. Satyrs, nymphs, mermaids, living trees and branches spring from my imagination after reading Shakespeare, Gogol, Bulgakov…