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Valery Nistratov, Jason Eskenazi

Documentary photographers Jason Eskenazi (American) and Valeri Nistratov (Russian) ▒took to the road▓ in order to shoot portraits in various cities of different levels of Russian society. They created a method by which each portrait was shot under identical conditions of lighting, distance from the camera, and pose. Only the locations changed, from factory to street to train station, hospital, prison, post office, sanatorium, etc. They travelled to more than ten cities and towns, including Novosibirsk, Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Krasnoyarsk, Moscow-133; A white sheet was used in the background of all the shots for purposes of continuity. Usually only one portrait was taken of each subject and the entire process took less than a minute. Audio interviews were recorded whenever possible in order to let the subjects speak for themselves. No attempt was made to represent all the ethnic nationalities, including those from the former Soviet Union, that now live on Russian territory. Instead the photographers concentrated more or less on the ▒pure▓ Russians who make up the majority of the population and are referred to in scientific terms as the Title Nation.