The German photographer Rudolf Herfort has a unique sensibility and a predilection for nostalgic, melancholic scenes that depict in just a few strokes a whole captivating story of how people cling to the past as a shelter from the fast paced present.
The project Russian Fairy Tales started as a visual exposé on public spaces and waiting rooms in Moscow but over the years it developed into a more complex study on the modernization process that is going on in Russia and how it is organically interlaced with elements that belong to the communist period, creating therefore surreal scenarios and a latent reluctance to change amidst the Moscovits.
“I photograph real, unmodified scenes—nothing is ever staged—but am always looking to draw out surrealist elements. My eye looks for incomprehensible situations, moments where you can’t quite put your finger on what’s happening. I aim to make mysterious images from abstract circumstance,” stated the photographer Rudolf Herfort in an interview for Lens Culture.
Photo credits: Rudolf Herfort