Alexey Titarenko is probably the most well known Russian photographer in the art world today. Alexey’s most visible work, City of Shadows, documents the profound social changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990’s.

I first came across Alexey’s work in 2007 when I was researching contemporary photographers from Russia and I immediately fell in love with his style of long exposure time shots made on the Hasselblad. At the time he was relatively unknown and it was extremely difficult to find much information on him.

Over the next decade, Alexey’s career grew considerably. In 2015 when I funded the Artist Series, he was on my shortlist. Alexey agreed to be interviewed and we spent several long phone conversations deciding what we’d talk about. Alexey didn’t want it to be political and as we got to know one another, we realized that we both had formal musical training. As we started to talk about how it influenced us – Alexey admitted a deep admiration of Dmitri Shostakovich who directly influenced his technique of shooting long exposures. We both realized we had our approach to the video figured out.

Alexey is an extraordinary talent in the history of photography. He’s one of the most intelligent artists living today and I’m proud to call him a friend.

These are images taken in his New York studio. I shot these between interview segments as he was working on some new prints using a technique of bleaching to emphasize highlights in the image.