Practical_Photoshop_-_November_2015_

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NOVEMBER 2015 PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY 41

wider social and cultural significance. “I don’t speak in this series about the Soviet era,” he says. “What is more

interesting to me is the fate of technology-oriented society, and utopian thinking. I used the relics of the Soviet era as

decorations for expressing my idea.” graduated from the Rodchenko Moscow The 26-year-old Russian photographer

School of Photography and Multimedia last year, where he specialised in documentary photography. He has

already won a number of awards for his work, including a World Press Photo award in 2013. Last year he was

shortlisted for Magnum’s ‘30 Under 30’ and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award.Tkachenko’s projects explore subjects

in depth, and over a long period. In Transition Age he shot perceptive portraits

Danila Tkachenko has made it his mission to locate and record these fascinating relics in his new book, Restricted Areas.

email while travelling in a remote region of northern Russia, is keen to point out that Tkachenko, answering questions via

the project is not specifically about his country’s past; he intends it to have a

FARshrouded in secrecy, relics of Russia’s Soviet-era past lie abandoned and all but from population centres and still

forgotten. They range from defunct space ha rdwa re to deser ted m ilita r y bu ildi ng s, observatories and once state-of-the-art

aeroplanes and submarines. Public access is restricted. Moscow-based photographer

of teenagers and the urban landscapes in which they lived, focusing on “loss of childhood and transition to adulthood”.

Then in his first book, he documented the lives of people who have withdrawn from society Escape, which last year became

and live remotely as hermits in the forests of Russia and Ukraine.This year, Restricted Areas was the

winner of the both the European Publishers Award for Photography and the Lensculture Exposure award. It will

be simultaneously published by five different publishers in five languages.The project began after Tkachenko

visited his grandmother in a previously ‘secret’ city in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region. “The city is still restricted for

visits and I could get inside only because of my grandmother,” he explains.

DANILA TKACHENKO

Danila Tkachenko’s high-key photographs use abandoned military and space hardware from the Soviet era to

examine humanity’s quest for technological progress. He reveals why and how he photographs ‘secret’ cities

[Above, left] Excavator on a closed quarry [Above] The world’s

largest diesel submarine [Left] Isolated stages

of space rockets

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Rising _ Stars _ Danila _ Tkachenko Danila _ Tkachenko _ Rising _ Stars

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BURNING

DESIRE

Photographer NK Guy landed a major book

deal by documenting the art of Burning Man

In mainstream media it’s mostly depicted as a mad hippie

festival of nudity, craziness and drugs. But Burning Man, the

temporary community that arises in the Black Rock desert

in Nevada every September, is also a display of remarkable

outdoor art installations. Just like the burning man itself,

these installations exist for the duration of the event, and

are burnt at the end. But they live on in the minds of those

who experienced it, and now also in a beautifully designed

Taschen book by NK Guy, who has documented the art of

Burning Man as a personal project since 1998.

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NK _ Guy _ Personal _ Projects

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