Igor Elukov

The North

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2016 FINALIST ]

That day, as always, the snowstorm was swirling on and on.

We wandered through tundra for about an hour.

Everything was white all around and I started to forget where the top is and where the bottom is.

The snow was filling my eyes and my mouth. It was hard to breathe, as if you are sinking.

It was impossible to see the border between the sky and the earth through the snowdrift. The earth was like sea.

We drove through the abandoned towns with Stalin-era architecture; they stood white, empty, clean, as bones in the field, whitened by the wind.

The thing about this emptiness is that it is impossible to break it, to fill it.

You are absent. It is you who become everything around: the creek, the river, the fire in the stove, the steam over the fish broth, miles and miles of swamps and a lonely man sleeping on a plank bed.

When the snowstorm was over I went out for a walk.

Tundra was polished by the wind, it was perfectly smooth and white, and I felt uneasy that I should leave my footprints on it.

 

 

Short Bio

Igor Elukov is a photographer and filmmaker born in Kirov, Russia in 1991. He is a teacher at “Fotografika” Academy of photojournalism and documentary photography, St. Petersburg, Russia. His work has been exhibited in various galleries such as: “Fotografika” gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia (solo) Ian Perry Scholarship exhibition, Hoxton Gallery, London, UK (group). Elukov is based in St. Petersburg.

 

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Igor Elukov