Eugene Sakhnenko is the kind of photographer whose work I view and think, 'I remember having that idea once kindof... I just figured someone else had done it so it never materialized....' These are the photographers who inspire the rest of us when we've been convinced that all the ideas had finally been taken.
Especially when you get an idea such as... a series of portraits of the backs of people's heads... And 6 months later, there's someone who did it faster then you, and it's better because the subjects are birds. http://www.audreycorregan.com/ (click on 'obviously').
So they take the cake. And I'm sure there is someone out there cursing Eugene as I cursed Audrey's lovely portraits.
Although Eugene's website is a work in progress and his artist statements are a bit cute in their simplicity, when I see his work I am reminded of something that seems to be a bit of a phenomenon. And this is that the nationality of a photographer is captured on a camera sensor as if it were just another color in the spectrum of light passing through the lens. It is impossible for a photographer to attempt to hide their nationality through their images. The camera never lies. We could both photograph the same subject side by side, and he would capture it differently through his Ukrainian eyes. Surely it is somehow related to the complexity of the relationship between our eyes and minds. And it doesn't help that most of the time they communicate without our conscious knowledge. So the idea that a moment of this communication could be captured with the click of a shutter... That doesn't seem very easy to conceal. That's not just an accent.
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