Shutter Speed: Alexey Titarenko

I tend to associate long exposure photography with light trails and movement; the kind of shots most of us like to take, and the kind that appear in rich supply on all photography sites. My bus and tram images are prime examples of this, in that they are taken at night and full of colour (especially after processing them in Photoshop). Alexey Titarenko, however, seems to go against the grain (so to speak) by producing monochrome images of St Petersburg street scenes (often with solitary figures walking across the frame) that evoke an ethereal other-worldly feel.

Born in 1962 in St Petersburg itself, Titarenko went on to study at the Department of Cinematic and Photographic Art at Leningrad's Institute of Culture, which he graduated from in 1983. According to one biographer, "Titarenko paints a bitter picture of a Russia (seen through the lens of St. Petersburg), where people live in a world of unrealized hopes and where time seems to have stopped" (1). His work comments on oppressive control of communist Russian, and the human condition of the Russian people. Below, I offer some examples:

White Dresses, St Petersburg, 1999.
Titarenko's use of long exposure transforms all subjects into frail-looking ghosts.

Untitled (Girl Sweeping).
I particularly like the painterly feel and high contrast to this and his other monochrome images (see also: Chris Friel). Selecting the correct shutter speed to obscure one's subjects at varying degrees is not easily done, and- for me- quite often there is a blurring of the line between creative effect and making a mess.

This is one from his City of Shadows (1992-4) series.
It strikes me as very political: a mass of ghosts scurrying to work up a set of steps; a mass of people whose individuality has been blurred by the the system they are a part of.

1) http://pobedagallery.com/artists/22-alexey-titarenko