Without masks - touching portraits of Russian stars

Alexey Nikishin takes portraits of famous personalities, showing them as ordinary people with real emotions.

Alexey Nikishin is a famous Russian photographer and designer. One of the bright, memorable and recognizable masters of modern black and white art photography.

The photo project “In the Role of Yourself” brought wide popularity to Alexei - a cycle of several exhibitions of psychological portraits of famous Russian rock musicians, theater and film actors, TV presenters and prominent representatives of show business. “A portrait,” the author says, “is a great happiness of touching the spiritual world of a person, his talent, sensuality, inner beauty. Sometimes a portrait reveals a person so much that the image acquires an amazing independent magical power. To discard everything superfluous in order to see the real – this is the philosophical meaning of the project.”

When asked what kind of photography Nikishin wants to take, he replies: “Honest real photography about the lives of real people. I'm not talking about style, it can be anything. I'm talking about the essence. For me, in photography, my personal statement about a person is much more important than external resemblance.

Alexey is interested in what happens to a person when nothing happens to him. He is attracted by pauses, "intermediate moments." He believes that it is at such moments that a person is “real”. “With my photography, I want to express something that is difficult to convey in words,” says the photographer.

(Total 20 photos)

Source: www.adme.ru

1. Chulpan Khamatova, actress

2. Artur Smolyaninov, actor. "This is a completely random moment. You can say, a kind of studio report."

3. Andrei Makarevich, musician. “With rare exceptions, I don't shoot in my own studio. Andrei Makarevich is just that very exception. At his house, I used the studio equipment of his wife Natalia.

4. Andrey Merzlikin, actor. “After the shooting, Andrei immediately pointed to this particular frame and asked me to print a large format photo for him as a gift.”

5. Sergei Bezrukov, actor. “Sergey is such a person - open, kind. Cheerful entertainer. But here it seems. this is not. And for me, this is a great success as a photographer.”

6. Alexander Revva, TV presenter

7. Ksenia Sobchak, TV presenter

8. Igor Kvasha, actor

9. Vladimir Spivakov, conductor

10. Marina Alexandrova, actress. “We chose between two almost identical shots - with eyes closed and open. Three years after the shooting, this photo won.”

11. Vyacheslav Butusov, musician

12. Maxim Matveev, actor

13. Marina Golub, actress. “Marina wanted this particular picture to hang in the lobby of the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov. But the photo was never posted. But everyone who knows Marina said that it was she in the picture.

14. Sergey Galanin, musician

15. Gleb Samoilov, musician

16. Valeria Gai Germanika, director. “To be honest, I have not seen a single film of Valeria, but I love her very much. She's a good, smart person."

17. Vladimir Vinogradov, director

18. Timofey Tribuntsev, actor

19. Anton Komolov, radio host.

20. Valery Yaremenko, actor