Simon Robert

Motherland

Apartment blocks reflected in water. Sakhalin Island. Far East Russia, October 2004

Camping with Sasha and Paval. Kamchatka Peninsula. Far East Russia, October 2004

Alexandrovsk Port. Sakhalin Island. Far East Russia, October 2004

Taxis cross the frozen Lena River. Yakutsk. Far East Russia, November 2004

Luba sits in her kitchen. Port Baikal. Eastern Siberia, November 2004

A man eats lunch in a roadside café. Altai Mountains. Western Siberia, June 2005

 

                            Galina and Sasha. Sakhalin Island. Far East Russia, October 2004

http://www.lensculture.com/simon_roberts.html#

Motherland is a bold visual statement about contemporary Russia, fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Between July 2004 and August 2005, British photographer Simon Roberts travelled throughout Russia making pictures in over 200 locations and creating one of the most extensive, comprehensive photographic accounts of this vast country by a Westerner.
The resulting images are not clichéd representations of a Russia ground down by poverty and despair; rather, he presents a beautiful and awe-inspiring land, its diverse people empowered by a growing optimism and connected by a shared love of the ‘motherland’. Intimate and revealing portraits of contemporary Russians show us a diverse people, united by a sense of common identity, while breathtaking landscapes reveal the complexity and uniqueness of the country.

 http://www.photofusion.org/gallery/photography/exhibitions/past/archive/roberts/simonroberts.htm

 Blackpool Beach, Lancashire, 25th July 2008

Maidstone Young Bird National Pigeon Race, Maidstone, Kent, 13th September 2008

 The Haxey Hood, Haxey, North Lincolnshire, 5th January 2008

 Keynes Country Park Beach, Shornecote, Gloucestershire, 11th May 2008

'I think one of my favourite pictures is the Keynes Country Park Beach where you’ve got the guy with the Mohican on the left, the tents and the deckchairs, and the couple who’ve got these bargain 20-bag packets of crisps (though there’s just two of them), and the guy wearing his socks with his shorts on. For me, the richest of the pictures are those where you get a lot of detail and you have to study them for a while. So the formal composition is very simple but it’s a way of looking at scenes where there’s a lot of information. The pictures are almost like maps to be read; and the details extend the interest in them. I think a picture like that will have historical interest - it’s almost anthropological in some ways' [Simon Roberts]

http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/985-simon-roberts-on-we-english

Derby Day, Epsom Downs Racecourse, Sunday 7th June 2008