Half Life
Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the predominantly Russian-speaking people of Lithuania’s former socialist-utopian paradise Sniečkus (renamed Visaginas in 1992) are slowly adapting to life in a foreign country without their beloved nuclear power plant. Half Life is a long-term project started in 2004 to photograph the town and its people as it passes through a period of massive change and uncertainty. Originally self-funded, in May 2012 the project received some much needed money from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture to exhibit 36 photographs from the series which went on show in Lithuania's leading contemporary art gallery in November of the same year. A further eight prints from the project are currently on display in Vilnius' Cozy bar-restaurant. These particular photographs date from 2011 and 2012. The black and white images were commissioned by a magazine in the UK and were shot on out-of-date film stock using a Voigtländer Bessa L 35mm camera the magazine's editor found in a cupboard. The colour images were captured on a iPhone 3. Read more in Latvia's FK Magazine here.
Black and white
Colour
I'm an English documentary photographer and curator working on several projects in the former Soviet Union that include both the taking and collecting of photographs. My photographic practice focuses on the veiled peculiarities of everyday life and is becoming increasingly concerned with the minefield of Soviet-related history and its contemporary aftermath. My work features in books and magazines, has won competitions, receives funding from a number of sources and is regularly bought by private collectors.
