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‘Portraits of Shame’ – Ivaylo Petrov shares the story and passion behind his emotive portrait series

When I first saw the evocative work of Bulgarian photographer Ivaylo Petrov in his series “Portraits of Shame,” I was immediately captivated.  The series is a collection of images depicting Bulgarian athletes inside their training center in Vidin.  The most startling aspect of the project, as I came to learn, is that these are not creative images in some nostalgic urban decay environment – these are photographs inside an active training ground that’s still in use today.

I wanted to know more about the project and Ivaylo’s passion behind it, so I decided to ask him some questions.

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Faceless Portraits Of 4th Graders Offers Telling Look At Family Life For Children Around The World

While volunteering in a fourth grade reading class in the United States, Judy Gelles found many of the students couldn’t relate to the stories they were assigned to study. To help get the children more interested in reading, Gelles had the idea to ask each of the 9 and 10 year old students to tell her their own stories. Gelles took it upon herself to write down all of their individual stories before reading them back to the children.

Gelles was intrigued almost instantly by the touching, and often sorrowful stories the children would candidly explain. Already an established photographer, Gelles was driven to share the poignant memoirs of modern childhood the most impactful way that she could. Thus, Fourth Grade was born. A five year long photography project that would take Gelles to classrooms across the US, India, China, Korea, and England, meeting with fourth graders and asking them all the same three questions:[Read More…]

Video Clip Explores Age Old Conundrum Of Photographers–Do We Really Only Experience Present Time As An Anticipated Memory?

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As a photographer, I’ve always just kind of assumed the duties of turning the present moment into the past without ever considering the downfalls of that or, rather, without ever even realizing there were downfalls in the first place. It’s just who I am. I photograph people, smiles, laughter, cries, love, rebellion… I photograph moments, capture time at its most powerful junctures all in the name of preserving that specific instant for future reference. After all, isn’t that what photographers are supposed to do? We capture important moments, how could that be a bad thing?

Then I happened across ‘The Instagram Generation’, a short, philosophical performance film, which opens up with a statement that, admittedly, cut right through to my core as it somewhat covertly questioned the very existence I have come to love as a cameraman…

“The ‘Instagram Generation’ now experiences the present as an anticipated memory.”

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