Towards the Horizon

He sees what others overlook. He creates magic out of nothing. From the most banal everyday scenes he manages to form images that seduce his audience, putting them under an extraordinary spell. Russian photographer Emil Gataullin is a master of lyrical black-and-white photography. His theme is the Russian village: a life far away from big decisions and sensations. Gataullin’s work is at the same time documentary and photographic poem; it dances on the thin line between deliberate sparseness, objectivity and restraint, and affectionate composition. Gataullin’s pictures neither glorify nor denigrate. They are a declaration of love for a Russia beyond Moscow. They prescribe nothing for the viewer – and are all the more mysterious for that. Text in English, German, and Russian.