by Rica Cerbarano
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The first time I’ve found myself in front of a photograph taken by Dmitry Markov I stared at it for a while. There was something magnetic in the eyes of the people looking into the camera.
With their square format and soft colors, the balance that those small images conveyed surprised me: it was an invitation to look carefully at an alienated, often difficult, reality from a different point of view.
His shots have the incredible ability to transform the subjects, often the so-called “social outcasts”, into the protagonists of a compelling story. His images, always perfectly consistent, both visually and narratively, look like frames of a black and white film re-coloured by hand.
Dmitry Markov was born in a small town near Moscow. He worked as a support teacher in an orphanage for children with cognitive disabilities in the Pskov region and as a tutor in a children’s home for kids who have left the orphanage. Even before than a photograph, he calls himself a social worker and journalist.
Besides the unquestionable quality of his shots, the interesting aspect of his work is the way in which he photographs: to document the day to day reality of which he is a part, as a true “son of his times” Markov uses only his smartphone which he uses to take and immediately share the photos on his Instagram page, which to date has more than 400,000 followers.
Markov is a photographer who uses his tool consciously: to be a witness, certainly, but also for himself. “Photography for me is a method to learn the world and also to communicate with my surroundings. Even if in the end I don’t think about it that much: I simply like to photograph” he tells me.
Convinced that art cannot make a difference, Markov pursues the “unpleasant side of life” by inviting those who look at his work to do the same.
DMITRY MARKOV| #DRAFT
curated by Nicholas Havette
in cooperation with Manuel Rivera Ortiz Foundation and VisionQuest
Palazzo Ducale
Cortile degli Svizzeri 1, Lucca
PHOTOLUX FESTIVAL | 16 November – 8 December 2019
from Mon to Fri: 3:00 – 7:30 pm
Sat and Sun: 10:00 am – 7:30 pm
November 15, 2019
