Svyatoslav Brodetskiy / Think

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When I set out to build my portfolio I realized one thing: I would be a godlike photographer if I could freeze time and assume any angle for my shot. However, things aren’t that simple. Photography takes courage and a certain artistic sort of confidence that reciprocates the esteem of the introvert poet. Any of my former art endeavors were rooted in the latter, and this influenced my approach to taking these photographs. I used a Sony DSC-TX7 point-and-shoot camera that was essentially at belly button level and I just took countless random photos as I was making laps around Union Square park, the almost cliché cultural center of urban life in Manhattan. The products were absolutely random, but I accomplished the imaginary. I froze time and saw what I wanted to see. I tried to produce the photos that I would have taken if I could defy the laws of physics and move myself about like a phantom. To accomplish this, I flipped through the random photos and cropped the photos by applying my perspective, some of the cropped material comes from just 10% of the original photo. In some instances I took just one face out of fifteen and developed a single canvas for that head. It’s difficult to defend this approach and, aside from Union Square’s urban clustering, it may be difficult to pick up a solid theme through the portfolio, but what I focused on in creating these images was the subject’s expression of thought or physiognomy.
I wanted to elicit questions from the viewer, for him to wonder what the subject was thinking. Of course there isn’t a straightforward answer, and in some cases there are several faces in a photo juxtaposed against one another. In a particular photo there are two women engaging in a conversation and a homeless person with his or her head retired upon his lap. I interpreted these two subjects as emotional polarities, and picking them out and producing them in this sort of juxtaposition was essentially what I set out to do.
All the shots were produced in black and white (or grayscale) because I felt that the color wasn’t necessary to illustrate the subject’s thoughts or expression. On the contrary, removing color creates a more reliable medium and allows the viewer to focus on the natural and human aspects in the picture, rather then getting distracted by the vibrant commercialism of New York City. I was not trying to make my photos vintage per se.
In one way, I felt that I drew inspiration from Philip-Lorca diCorcia. I took a series of candid photos but also arbitrarily imposed my reality onto the image. While diCorcia didn’t blatantly crop his photos and I didn’t exploit lighting in mine, there is a blend of his methods that influenced my style.
I did not use a specific naming system because I did not want to predispose the viewer to a particular perception. Instead I stated the obvious.