Photography by Misha Gordin

Misha Gordin was born in 1946, the first year after World War II ended. Having survived the hardships of evacuation, Gordin’s parents returned back home to Riga, Latvia, after the war which was then under Soviet occupation. Growing up among the Russian speaking population of Latvia, Russian became Gordin’s root culture.

Gordin started to photograph when he was nineteen, driven by his desire to create a personal style and vision. He was involved in portraiture and did some documentary shots, but soon realized the results were unsatisfactory. Putting his camera aside, Gordin concentrated on reading (Dostoevsky, Bulgakov) and cinematography (Tarkovsky, Parajanov). He was constantly looking for the right way to express personal feelings and thoughts using photography.

One year later it came to him clearly and simply. Gordin decided to photograph “concepts” rather than the literal capturing of a moment on film. In 1972, Gordin created his first, and most important image, ‘Confession’. Instantly recognizing the potential possibilities of his conceptual approach and the knowledge acquired from creating this image,