sisters

I was born as unique child and I've always felt the emptiness as if someone had to be there but never was...
When I was a teenager I had my first sister and few years later another one. I won't lie, I felt weird about these new family members, they were as much aliens to me as me to them. I came visited my father and always ignored my sisters because I had no idea what I could do with them. The only thing that helped me to communicate with was photography. Otherwise I was just looking on them furtively, seeing their tender relationship towards each other and being jalouse of it.
How many times I went in their house with the only envy to take them into my arms and kiss them. I never could. I cried every time in the train leaving, when it was too late to hug them. I just couldn't and I still don't know why. In general I'm not very tactile person (only few exceptions) it's not by choice because I'm very sensitive so I need the human connection, but by the stupidest habit in order to protect myself so I won't get hurt.
And then, few years ago, a weird thing happened, my sisters slowly started to invade my personal space, but very smartly, step by step, calling me to swim together in the pool, chilling with me in the hammock, then touching my arms (the secret zone) and lying with me in front of the TV, etc etc. It was weird at first and then I felt the emotions I never felt before. The next step was comforting me in original ways, because they felt that saying normal compliments won't work, so they found amazingly strange and interesting ways to communicate their feelings to me. For exemple my smallest sister calls me every morning to wake me up because she knows how hard it is for me to open my eyes and confront another day. The other one is ready to do anything for my pictures, I mean for real, she bled and freezed for the shootings ! And already woke up in 6 in the morning for the jogging with me.
And I have to say that my confidence in myself grew up thanks to them ! Even if when I'm with them I never wear the makeup and I look like a hobo they still think I'm beautiful (and it's not out of pity, I promise). These two small girls teach me so much. Now I feel like they are closer to me then anyone has ever been. Last time I spend the holidays with them I felt a bit down because of a heart situation and instead of staying depressed by myself (what I used to always do) I asked them to take a walk with me before bed, and they made me laugh so much the three of us were in physical pain. And they didn't said something basic like "don't worry you are cool and pretty" they told me "you are the unique, original, talented and fresh and you are not just a pear or apple, you are a demon fruit" (pretty sure she ment dragon fruit but this way it's even funnier and it became our private joke).
Our parents have no idea how crazy, insane, silly and happy we are when we are together just the three of us...

The distance between us hurts me sometimes but more over all I know they are here, always, and that we have so many things we will share in the future. All the love they give me (I repeat not me to them but they to me) makes me feel stronger and it's growing up every day. Sometimes I still feel like I want to screw everything up but I also feel that I can't do this to them, which is the best thing that ever happened to me, to feel loved so much that I won't be able to hurt myself.

poisonous relationships

Lately (I mean since I can remember myself) I couldn't stop thinking why I spend almost all my life as a single person, what is wrong with me and why I have that weird pattern of falling in love with unavailable people or why do I attract damaged boys. It's been many years since my latest and only one serious relationship, that last for almost 5 years, and since then it's been an emotional disaster. Drug addicts, manipulators, already in a relationship, unavailable emotionally, don't know what they want, lost, those who were coming back when it was too late (sometimes it all was the one and same person, I swear !)... 

But for the last few months I'm enjoying, for the first time since forever, being single, I mean for real !!! I don't want to be with someone just for being not alone, I'm not searching for anyone, I'm building myself, trying to love myself (which is hard) and cherish what I have : my life, my family, my friends, my private moments ; it is all so new for me, I feel like I'm discovering a new world, my world...

And on the other side I have a lot of my friends, who are unhappy in couple or just broke up or not knowing how to end their painful relationship. It is such a struggle. I would love so much to help everyone because now I know that life is such a magic thing and if we loose all our energy and light on bad relations we will never create something meaningful and won't be able to build ourselves.

Of course the moment I felt the best in my skin I met someone : unavailable again. And I felt that I still have that weird unresolved thing of being attracted to what is bad for me. And I felt again the weight of being unhappy and waiting for a miracle... Asking what is the matter with me ? Why I spend all my teenage years alone and except for my only one good couple experience I kept on harming myself through my partners. So I was going on and on... Eating myself from inside, driving crazy my parents and friends with depressing conversations of "why oh why ?"... And just when I was on the edge of falling into my melancholic state of mind I got a message from my teenage sister in which she was saying that her boyfriend just broke up with her without explanation ! 

I was shocked to the core...

The thing is I never thought that something was wrong with people I felt for, I mean they were not good for me but it was me who was choosing to try the relationship knowing since the beginning it would fail, and although I perfectly understand that sometimes people who are not good for us might be just perfect for someone else. The real problem is always inside of us, not in others. I kept on doing it to myself blindly, choosing wrong and hoping for the best. It might come from my childhood and my teenage years where I was so unhappy and depressed, the sadness stuck with me. I thought that the problem was the leftovers of my darkness that men could feel and the good ones were repulsed by it whereas the bad ones were attracted to it. It was my theory that I was believing in for years.

Except that my little sister is the purest sunshine, was the happiest child I knew and now blooming teenager surrounded by many friends, having great relationship with family, beautiful, very smart and good in studies, gifted, talented, sporty, funny, quirky, etc etc. So practically the opposite of what I was at her age. So how come ? Everything went perfectly well with her and her boyfriend since the beginning ! My theory was wrong.

As much as I was sad for her and willing to kill the boy with my bare hands I started to think... 

There are no rules, everything can go perfectly well until it doesn't ! Nothing is wrong with her or with me, those are just the experiences, lessons for us to learn and become better people. We might be all damaged in life but still have a marvelous relationships. 

One important thing I understood thanks to all my ruminating moods and thanks to my little sister : we should all RUN RUN RUN from the poisonous relationships and people : block them, never see them, hide from them until we are healed... I don't understand why we are attracted to the complications or why we reject those who like us, or why some play with our feelings but I know it doesn't worth it. Our life is too precious to spend it in sorrow. We should cry until falling asleep, drink, stay out until the sun wakes up, party with friends, talk to our confidents and relatives in order to eject the poisonous feelings from our blood system, those emotions are bad drugs. Then forget, turn the page and go on ! We loose too much energy on trying to understand why and too much time trying to repair what is broken and can't be repaired.

I am grateful to my failures with my ex-boyfriends because now I know when to run from a guy immediately without any second thought and when to stop because something is feeling wrong.

The right person exist for each one of us, waiting, probably also struggling, so we shouldn't betray this person by staying with a wrong one. 

Loving our life as it is and living every day with open mind might be all we have at the moment but it's all we need to meet our soulmate. Love is good and simple, without regular fights, hate, jealousy etc, it's not hard nor painful. Love makes us grow every day.

Start with the love for yourself and the rest will come as easily as breathing. 

my little sister and me

fading sparks

There is a certain kind of special people you meet with whom you fall in love almost instantly, for no particular reason, it just feels like some sort of a karmic relationship. You see them all the time, think about them all the time, even if you live far away you always manage to talk to them often. Everything starts very fast and you can't imagine how you lived without them before. You see them as your soul siblings and say "I love you" more than you probably should.
And then all this magic goes away. They disappear completely or you fight all the time and suddenly no one have time for one another. Weeks, months, years are passing by and maybe your paths are going to cross again or maybe not. And I think it's a good thing. Not all relationships are meant to last, we can loose a track of friends or lovers but still have that fuzzy warm feeling about them and the time we had together. It doesn't mean you don't love each other anymore, it only means your time has passed. As if you were two shooting stars crossed in a flight : intense but brief.
I don't believe in coincidence, all meetings happen for a reason and I think we all have lessons to learn from one another. We should cherish each moment in relationships because even if it is not going to last it will make you understand something very meaningful. The most complicated and painful thing is to let go and accept without trying to retrieve it, because once the spark is gone you can't have it back but you can find another one with someone else and keep the old one as a beautiful memory.

to all my past loves and friendships

recovery

I gave up on genuinely writing this blog many months ago. I had a huge blackout that started at the end of last year, too many poisonous questions were popping out in my head : what for, who needs this, should I continue... and not only concerning the writing or photography but life in general (which sounds terrifying and it is). Feeling hopeless and useless I stopped creating for myself, taking only commands for other people which made me feel like an animal stuck in a swamp with no will to move because of the fear to sink deeper. I know everybody has those moments of doubts but it's different when you experience it all by yourself. Of course it is a known thing noone can pull you from that state except yourself. So I travelled in order to see new kind of beauty, met different people in order to hear their stories and pushed myself to make crazy experiences in order to feel again. It didn't worked immediately but step by step I started to live again.
I decided to make this blog more personal from now own first of all because I feel I need this and the second reason is that when I read personal things of other photographers or artists in general it makes me stronger, to see that they can be weak too and full of hesitations gives me courage to continue. And sometimes coming back and seeing all those old pictures and thoughts is a good thing and it makes me happy because I know I evolved and because some things I never want to forget, even the hard ones.
So no more questions just moving forward no matter what. It's going to be a mix of old thoughts and old shootings with my new experiences until I recover completely and devote myself to a present moment.

a no-make-up autoportrait I took few months ago when I started to emerge from my frozen state

resolutions

my resolutions for this year are next : 

• no more destructive relationships, I had enough and it doesn't worth it.
• make steady steps toward my dreams in any circumstances, no more self-pity.
• start to love myself.

I don't know which one is the hardest, but it shows one thing : a problem with "my own me". I have to accept the way I am from A to Z or change the things that are changeable and move on.

I heard few times that the good way to see who you are is to look at yourself from aside, as a friend would do. I think it is a very good idea and I'll try to use it !

and the other thing people told me is that the good therapy is regularly take the auto-portraits. actually it's how I started making pictures when I was a teenager, but I dropped it because it was too painful to see all those flaws in my face and my body. 

I, now, understand how important it is to find inner-peace and gain the confidence. even though I know it will not be easy, I'll try my best.

one of my first auto-portraits as a teenager :

me now :

Ali B

Ali contacted me few months ago, he needed the pictures for his book.
we've met at the place he choose, the one you can see very often in my pictures. it was a cold afternoon or at least I was cold, Ali was changing his clothes and didn't seemed to mind it whereas I was shivering...
"the cold is only in your head", - he told me. I still don't know how could I live in Siberia for 16 years...

we talked at the same time as I was shooting him, it was even faster then usual. Ali has that amazing capacity to translate in the pictures his emotions in a fraction of a second and has different faces, I saw in him : at least 3 different actors, one family related member and my high-school crush. this is the other thing I don't understand : how could some people have that special something, that is visible only when the camera is pointing at them ? it's like they can take the other shapes, as if they have several beings that live inside of them. and it is not even beauty or charm it's something else, much more deeper ! and of course they are the best gift for my inner eye.
our shooting was very spontaneous I felt like I could experiment more with him, then I usually do. then we grabbed a tea together and talked about everything and nothing, it was so easy.
some meetings are really meant to be and you can feel it, even if we don't understand why at the moment...

few days later I send the pictures to Ali, as always a bit nervous : "will he like it or not ?". and now I have on my answering machine the best return about my work ever ! thank you Ali for your reaction and your words, it's etched in my head !

soul twins

I woke up alone in my bed telling myself that something was wrong, was it all a dream ? but her smell was still on the pillow and few long blond curly hair. I could easily imagine her shoulder covered with stars, it was not a dream. she is just gone for several days.
a new chapter of my life starts over. I don't remember myself being that happy in a very long time.
I always wanted to have a twin sister, and from the day we've met I thought it was her ! we are reunited now. I know it's not going to be always easy, but we'll do our best.
from now on we are going to be each other's home and we both needed it so much !

Russia

it's been a while since I wrote about the feelings...
so here it comes.

I went in Moscou few weeks ago and even though it's not my hometown it touched me deeply. the last time I was here it was 11 years ago, back then I was a very unhappy teenager and I didn't liked it at all. but this time it was magical. many things changed but the essential good things about my people and my country are still the same : the beauty of the souls and the warmth of the heart.

I left my homeland about 13 years ago and never did my grieving. I was thinking I was tougher then that. but once in the plane on my way back to France, independently from my will, tears started to divide my face in many parts : who am I ? why did I left ? what if I have stayed ? should I go back and live in Russia ? ... so many thoughts and the most painful : I don't know where I belong. I kept crying for two planes, one train and few days after my return...

the weird thing is that almost at the same time my father, my mother and I found ourselves in Russia, separately. it's like it called us back. I didn't had a chance to go to my hometown - Irkutsk, it's been 5 years and I feel with every cell of my body that I miss it so much.

for many reasons this trip was moving : the end of a very painful relationship, realization that one part of my life was over, the fact that I had taken many bad decisions and didn't listened to my inner voice...
but after a hard comeback and a huge nostalgia I decided that I will always have two countries : one native land and one home land.

few days later my mom came back in France from Irkutsk and told me that the same thing happened to my little brother : he started to cry in the plane saying : "I want to stay here, I love it here"...
there is something about our souls, it tears us apart when we are leaving Russia.

P.S. I will never say enough "thank you" to my friend Masha, who received us and showed me everything and even more, love you girl !

view from guest room window :

Masha's parent's place :

GUM :

me :

Masha's performance :

Radisson Royal Hotel :

Red Square model :

1st May in Kremlin :

White House :

Sparrow Hills :

Lomonosov Moscow State University :

Triumphal Arch of Moscow :

memorial to my beloved russian artist :

Novodevichy Convent :

Former factory building of the "Red October" confectionery :

evil :

subway :

view from Ostankino Tower :