Column: _{My photography}

Maxim Averin

A "Satiricon" theater actor

How often do you travel?

I have been trying to escape from winter to summer for already several years now. Last year I went to Cuba, the year before last I traveled to China. First it was Hong Kong, then Hainan. This year we've made for Indonesia. First we visited Singapore, then the islands. I want to tell about it so much. It all depends on the place you go to. And on what you expect from the trip. The main thing is to have time to catch the local color. For example, when visiting Cuba, I explored only Havana because not everybody was allowed to the provinces. That is why you don't see authentic Cuban life.

Have you ever been to London?

I liked London very much. I was staying at a private house which was put at our disposal for 10 days. It was situated near Kensington Palace, Lady Di's Palace, all those parks...I went to a baker's myself. I wanted to take photo of every corner of London. I had thought that this city was so prim. London was buried in petunias, such a warm, extremely clean city. I didn't even wear my shoes through while staying there. In this sense Paris, of course, is not a very clean city. The French are like the Russians: they are ignorant of their past in the same way. However I like it everywhere. I am quite a cosmopolitan - I feel comfortable wherever I go. Though a thought occurred to me that I like to come back home. Like in the childhood after a few weeks at a summer camp you go by bus and it seems to you that so much has changed.

Are there any photographs in the interior of you home?

Oh, you mean my photographs, don't you? Well, it is just the same as to exhibit one's awards. Though having come to my place you've given me the idea to print them. It is the second time my computer is breaking down and I am afraid I may lose all my photos. What is the horror of the digital technologies? It irritates me. Hardly have you taken a photo when they begin to cry out: "Let me see!" That's why it's getting boring. When you take photographs using film there's the point of intrigue: how is it going? What is going on there? The process of expectation. Film is a great thing. My own photographs are standing by the wall - I even like it, they are waiting in the wings.

Photo by Maxim Averin

Then what would you hang on the walls in your interior (if we don't speak about your photos)?

I would always change the exposition at home. I like autumn, that state of mind. Landscapes. I adore black-and-white photography. There's some kind of vagueness in it - you can think up what is missing, can live to it. I prefer not to call it "épatage" because there's something far-fetched in it while I like vividness and originality.

How did photography become you hobby?

It all began when I started taking photos with a simple point-and-shoot camera. I made a very good portrait. Generally I make portraits. I do not like the way the interviewers take my photos. I wonder how the very essence of a person can be caught. In the past a photographer used to grasp some peculiar feature in actors' photographs. Today they take photos of a toilet bowl or a bed but not of a person. One needs to be able to find peculiar features. Once I was taking photos of my girlfriend while having rest. We didn't want to make nudes but it came out somehow by itself. The image of a Lolita came into being. She was lying on the lawn, with a cigarette. Suddenly she bared her breast. Netx time, I think, I will look for something more textured.

So it is interesting for you to discern an image in a model, isn't it?

What I like most of all is biographies. Of course, it is interesting to see an image and guess what is behind it.

Photo by Maxim Averin (Agripinna Steklova and Volodya Bol'shov)

Creative imagination - what is it? It is....

For a drama theatre actor training is his impressions and feelings. He should read much, listen much, travel much. It doesn't matter if he can not go farther than Balashikha - nevertheless he must be ready for impressions. Do you remember the story about Evstigneev and his surgery abroad? The doctor told him in details how the surgery would be performed. And the actor had imagined it so vividly that his heart failed him. We use the saying "an actor must be hungry" too often and not in a proper way. As though he really must be hungry. No. He must be hungry for passions, for impressions and perfection. That is why I am full of ideas - to move further, to overcome my laziness. As a matter of fact I would like to die some day somewhere.... I would finish all my movies and go to the seaside where there are silence and horizon only. I'd take along my books, photographs, music... and that would be the place where I'd review all my life. I think it is the worthy final. The time will come when I will choose but not be chosen. Because you know that our profession is very dependant. I'd like to say freely - "certainly no" to this and "yes" to that. But I first should become financially independent. My profession gives me many illusions.

To take along photos...

Of course, because they are memories.

Photo by Maxim Averin

What do you mean speaking about photography?

For me a photograph is a historical document. 10 years ago I lost a person who had been very close to me. They say that time is the best healer but it's absolutely not. I often feel I miss her badly. So I don't like to look at the latest photographs. I prefer the earlier photos of her. Right after her death, somewhere between the ninth and the fortieth days, I had a dream: I was six years old and I am running to her up the stairs. She was sitting there...she was not at the age she died at but at her forties. I said to her, "How come you've left me, how could you?". And she answered to me, "I will always be by you side". That's it! Happiness is measured in millimeters and seconds, and photography - even a bad one - reminds you about it.

Are you interested in you genealogy?

Of course, family photographs are interesting. They are surely to be kept. I was sorting out the inheritance I'd got and was very surprised at the fact that people used to take photos of funerals. They take photo of the deceased and his relatives standing there in sorrow. I found a photograph of my great grandfather's funeral. I consider it a historical document.

Did you find it at some of your relatives' place?

Yes, at my mother's. Photographs of the deceased are said not to be kept at home. They are thought to have some negative energy. As for me, I do not understand what the point to keep such photographs at home is. However I am by no means inclined to feng shui and other things like that though I am very close to it intuitively. I've got favorite flowers - people present them to me, and sometimes I go to the marketplace and buy them myself. My favorite color is white. According to feng shui it is very good. I feel comfortable to live like that. Why should I keep the photos of the deceased if it is unpleasant for me to look at them? Yes, I come closer to harmonious life not by imposing someone else's ideology - I begin to understand what I need for comfortable life.

Photo by Maxim Averin

But it is difficult. Because people from without are always trying to interfere in your life. You're popular, aren't you?

I will never let anyone break the harmony I have created. Those who were disturbing my life were making me cast doubt on myself. They were not "my" people. Someone may tell the truth but this truth is destroying me. I understand this life as well as my own drawbacks. I am quite well off and I do not want anyone to disturb the course of my life. Life means endless doubts so you should get rid of what stops you from developing yourself.

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