Shooting with (Patreon)

Pashkovskiy

Today I decided to finally share a very old shoot that had been carefully hiding on my computer for a long time – December 2023.

This shoot was made with a photographer I had known for many years, even before I started shooting nude. I first heard his name during a course on project-based photography, where we studied the work of well-known photographers from Magnum and similar agencies. And that was the moment I realized that photographers in Ukraine also create long-term projects, exhibit their work abroad, and work with meaningful, often journalistic topics – not just “beautiful pictures.”

That photographer is Roma Pashkovskyi.

I won’t go into the details of his biography. What matters to me is that simply meeting him and talking to him was deeply inspiring. At that moment in my life, he gave me a lot to think about. He became a kind of motivator for me – to create from desire, not from an idea. To photograph not what others expect, but what you actually feel. And sometimes not even show it to anyone at all – because there is no real need to. The only real need is to satisfy your inner creator.

No copying.

No chasing the best equipment.

No need to make things “pretty.”

What matters is doing something that makes your eyes, heart, and soul burn.

And how do you know it’s real? Very simply – when you create something and don’t feel the urge to show it to anyone right away. When the joy comes from the act itself – from having done it, from having lived through it – and you’re not thinking about the viewer’s judgment at all. Even more than that: the viewer’s opinion no longer has the power to hurt you if your work is not appreciated “properly.” What matters is your own sense of fulfillment from what you created.

Now, a little about the concept of this shoot. If you visit his page and scroll back to the pre-war period, you’ll see what he usually communicates through his social media – and what kind of photography earns him a living. Mostly black-and-white film, large or medium format, people photographed against plain backgrounds – very vulnerable, honest, stripped-down portraits. That’s what he is mostly known for among the average Kyiv audience.

But his real soul lives in his personal projects. They are not as “perfect,” not as “commercial,” but they all share one thing – soul and atmosphere. A very specific mood that he transmits through his work.

This shoot was an attempt to convey the feeling of loneliness in rented apartments. We deliberately searched for the strangest, oldest apartment we could find in a residential district of Kyiv – something that smells of the past, something that echoes the uniformity of Soviet times, something carrying that subtle taste of bad taste.

And that was exactly the point.