Saint Petersburg ”Art of Foto” Gallery 21 July to 21 August 2016 presents a personal exhibition of the Saint Petersburg photographer Ekaterina Vasilyeva.

The exhibition includes twenty black and white prints (in limited editions of 3 copies, in sizes of 30×30 cm) from negatives taken by medium format 6×6 cm camera ”Yashica 124g” and printed manually on gelatin silver paper in own lab of ”Art of Photo” Gallery.

The story has been published partially at: Halation Magazine, Revista OLD, Bleek magazine, Square Space Magazine, Litro, Of the land us, Dodho Magazine, The Lucky Jotter, Private and Urbanautica. The 40 days spent in Herne Bay helped Ekaterina Vasilyeva to comprehend and articulate her visual perception of the provincial England. More precisely the Kent county which was her home for two years.

The project ”40 days of the tides’ also exists as hand made book. Special edition of only 40 copies.

About the project

When you are out taking pictures, it is not that you have figured something out and want to tell the world about it; you yourself are trying to understand it, to reflect on it, and it is the pictures that will lead you to that understanding. I took this series of photos just before I left Kent County (England), where I had been living for two years, to return home to St. Petersburg. For a number of reasons, I ended my stay with a sojourn in Herne Bay, a small town on the coast of the North Sea, and it was exactly forty days long. Before that, I had gone to the seaside every weekend, traveling by bus from Canterbury, and had taken long walks between the coastal towns. In the 19th century, this part of the coast was considered one of the best seaside locations for Londoners to spend their holidays, and they fled here to escape the noise, the dust and the smells of the city. Being so close to the sea allowed me to observe the rise and fall of the tides every day.

Walking along the shore, I could see how in as little as an hour the water could change its level, and how several hours later everything looked completely different. Wide expanses of damp sand with shells on it opened out before me, and certain low spots with stone in the middle of them were still full of water. Somewhere in the distance, the waves were pounding, they were pushing and pulling, but with each surge they reached a new line. Little by little, they once again approached the original shoreline, hiding everything underneath them. The tidal cycles are defined by two high points and two low points every day. Just as with the sea, we have our own internal high and low tides. But our feelings are governed by their own laws, and our emotional tides ebb and flow, gradually subsiding. This is not a smooth process; it is, if anything, uneven. These days helped me to understand and to articulate my visual perception of provincial England. To take a last look at the country. Or rather at the County of Kent, which had been my home for two years.

About Ekaterina Vasilyeva

Ekaterina Vasilyeva is a Russian photographer from St. Petersburg, working at the intersection of the genre, documentary and art photography. After years of working in the tourism industry, she became active as a photographer in 2010. Ekaterina Vasilyeva in most of project explores the theme of a particular place (space, territory, it changes in the context of time and historical landmarks, environment problems, interaction with human activity, personal relationship and the myths of the place.