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Siberian Photographer Nikolay Bakharev’s Forbidden Intimate NSFW Portraits


During the 1980s by the Siberian artist Nikolay Bakharev worked as a mechanic and communal services factory photographer in the USSR. To supplement his income he would solicit work as a black market portrait photographer on the public beaches of Eastern Russia. If the shoot went well, he would invite his subjects to make further images in a more intimate setting, compelling his subjects over several hours into contorted, erotically charged poses, which at the time was highly illegal.

After the the fall of the Iron Curtain, Bakharev began to work more openly as an artist, although often being admonished as a pornographer. His photographs from this time reveal more than just the bodies of his subjects, but the longing and dampened dreams of the inhabitants of an industrial town and the desires of an unrelenting artist.

“It would be easy to misinterpret these images as simply the pornographic imaginings of a manipulative and dirty old man, yet there is something else within them — in the subjects’ eyes, in their frankness, in their curiosity and collusion, as well as in their surroundings – that suggests that much more is going on here, and that what is both at stake and in evidence stretches far beyond the realms of explicit sexuality, voyeurism and mere titillation.” — Aaron Schuman

Bakharev’s models are the people among whom he lives and his depictions can be divided into two distinct bodies of work: private and public. The private images are generally women or couples photographed in their homes, and the public are couples and larger groups in swimsuits photographed in the woods. During the 60s and 70s it was illegal to photograph nudes so the swimmers provided a surrogate. Taking on the role of “beach photographer” enabled Bakharev to both earn a living and depict his subjects in a much more revealing way than was officially allowed.

Bakharev carefully arranges his subjects into compelling poses in which the physical contact is erotically charged, and at the same time displays vulnerability and elegance.

h/t: juxtapoz












































The post Siberian Photographer Nikolay Bakharev’s Forbidden Intimate NSFW Portraits appeared first on Design You Trust.



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