Intimate portraits by Masha Kushnir

Photographer Masha Kushnir does not shoot models or celebrities. Her characters are mostly ordinary people, neighbors on the porch, friends and relatives, and the tools are natural light and a medium—format film camera, which increasingly turns out to be where its owner is.

This is the Szecheni Bathhouse in Budapest. Despite the fact that it is one of the most famous sights of the city, locals also go there. And constantly. We arrived almost to the opening, meeting among the visitors Hungarians playing chess right in the pool, old men reading the latest newspapers, painted women in pearls and this man, who, as you can see, even closed his eyes with pleasure.

​These are my close friends, I've filmed them both a lot and often. But for some reason, never together. Apparently, in vain.

Very rarely do I meet people who can move so smoothly and gracefully, as if they spent the last ten years in ballet school. Nevertheless, Vika is one of them. Whatever she does — sitting on the floor waiting for a flight, running a marathon or drinking tea at her dacha — she does it all so gracefully and naturally that she can't help but admire. I never ask her to pose, and all she can hear from me is the command "Don't move!".

A fashion designer friend of mine sewed this jacket as a thesis, for which a photo shoot was started. It is very complex and very beautiful, she sewed it for almost six months. This photo was taken about ten minutes before the end of the shooting, when the jacket had already been photographed from all angles and it was finally possible to focus on the model.

Every time I come to Tel Aviv, I go to Siciliana, a cafe that sells the most delicious pistachio ice cream. In the photo, my friend Ira, shot through the window of the institution with the horn I glorified.

Many years ago, we were sitting with friends in a restaurant, and a long-haired Armenian girl of about five ran past. I grabbed the camera and tried to take it off, as her dad immediately appeared. Not all parents like it when their children are photographed, besides without asking, so I was ready for an unpleasant dialogue. But no, on the contrary, the girl's dad asked to send him photos, he liked them, and he wanted a photo shoot. That's how our friendship with Mariana and her parents began.

I've been shooting a series about grandmothers for the last couple of years. You can see it here. And it all started with this portrait of my own grandmother.

On a heavy medium-format camera with manual focus, it is quite difficult to catch the moment, and I often hear that my photos look like paintings. But here I wanted not just to shoot a beautiful girl, but to photograph Vika. I put her in the hallway, stood in front of her, sharpened up and started chatting, trying to make her laugh. When it finally succeeded, such a frame turned out.

Shooting children with a film camera with manual focus is still an adventure. Especially when there are three of them and two cameras. Nevertheless, this photo turned out to be very timeless and serious. But that's not why I love her. The true character of this girl is best indicated by the thumb of her left foot, which is so touchingly buried in the carpet.

The seller at the newsstand was filmed on a borrowed camera from a friend many years ago. I didn't know a single photographer at that time, I don't think I'd even heard of Cartier-Bresson. Nevertheless, just like him (I apologize for such a comparison), I shot a lot in Paris. It was in this city that everything began.

​This shot was taken in Berlin's Old National Gallery. There were few people that day, and my friend and I walked around the halls for a long time, carefully studying the paintings. This man was sitting in one of them, all alone, he was looking at one point and apparently listening to an audio guide. It would seem that there was nothing unusual in the situation itself, but there was so much loneliness and sadness in his posture and look, in the way he sat on the edge of the bench, that it was impossible not to photograph it.

This is London, 2012. There are a lot of cars around, people are hurrying somewhere, impatiently overtaking each other, someone nervously looks at the clock, someone at the traffic light. And then the light turns green, all this dissipates, and these girlfriends appear out of nowhere. They cross the road at a leisurely pace, holding each other's arm and discussing some important topics for their age. Probably, this is how I would like to meet old age.

I really don't want to tell anything about this photo, it seems to me that any details will destroy its magic.

I photographed actor Yuri Kolokolnikov for Afisha in connection with the release of the new season of Game of Thrones, where he starred. To prepare for the shoot, I remember I had to arrive almost an hour and a half before the meeting. Probably, by the glass of whiskey and the general background, it seems that it was a leisurely conversation for life, but in fact there were fifteen minutes for an interview and a photo shoot, and a crowd of journalists was waiting for Kolokolnikov after us.

I have never filmed pregnant girls and, until my children appeared, I generally tried to avoid such orders. But I couldn't refuse this girl. She was about to give birth, and I was very worried, because I understood that she was in this state for the first, and maybe for the last time in her life. I really wanted to convey the importance and beauty of the upcoming event.

In my opinion, this is the Palais Royal Park in Paris. The plot is completely normal for this city.

I went to Petra with two or three cameras, and it seems that nothing else fit in my backpack. We spent a total of eleven hours on the road, not the most pleasant in my life, just to see this ancient city. Who would have thought that the favorite photo from there would be not portraits of Bedouins, not crypts or temples, not even a postcard view of the world-famous mausoleum of El-Khazneh, but this Jordanian donkey.