The Photographer That’s Making You Look Twice at a Frame (NSFW)

Looking at the work of photographer Igor Brekhov, it’s easy to see the power of humanity in an image over the world that capitalistic generative AI that is being pushed on us. “My signature is what I call ‘conflict in the frame’: the picture looks peaceful until you notice what is wrong,” Igor tells us. And upon looking at the images of Igor’s project, NOCTURNE, that’s exactly what I noticed as well. At times, there was a feeling of the Blair Witch Project while at other times, the photographs felt like a nightmare.

All images by Igor Brekhov. Used with permission. The Phoblographer only features real photographers with actual photography websites, not content creators. Please check out Igor’s website and Instagram for more.

Igor was an engineer for most of his 20s and as a hobby, he did photography on nights and weekends. He describes it as a part of his life where he had no rules. At the same time, he realized something when he was making photographs: it was the only thing he really cared about. In 2022, he left engineering to do photography with his fullest passion.

Drawing on inspiration from painters and cinema, he worked on the idea of world-building within a single frame. Cinematographers call this Mise-En-Scene.

“From surrealist painting I took the habit of putting ordinary things into situations that cannot happen and leaving them there without an explanation,” he tells the Phoblographer. “Being self-taught, I had no school to imitate, so I assembled my own way of working out of those two instincts.”

Unlike most photography involving nude women, Igor wanted to go way beyond just presenting the women as they are conventionally seen. “Staged surreal black and white let me do that: instead of photographing a body, I could photograph a situation that a body is trapped inside,” he tells the Phoblographer. “The genre chose itself once I realized I was more interested in building scenes than in finding them.”

As Igor honed his craft, he started to define his work as something more patient, yet also darker.

To make his scenes, Igor builds them up into staged works and directs them like a film director. His tools include a Canon EOS R6, and a Canon 5D Mk IV along with an RF 24mm f1.8 and RF 24-70mm f2.8 L II.

“I like working fairly wide, because my pictures are as much about the impossible situation and the place as about the figure, and I want both held in one frame,” Igor tells us. “My night scenes are built rather than found, so I bring my own lighting to the location and shape it around the figure for each set-up. I keep the kit deliberately simple – the hard part of my work is the staging, not the equipment.”

Igor describes his scenes as happening at night and in often impossible places. From the photographs that we see, that’s very evident. At times, the images look like something from crime scene where you’d wonder how something happened. Yet at other times, I felt like I was being watched by an otherworldly being and I was struggling to make sense of what was happening.

To do this work, Igor often uses flash. “When natural light helps the illusion I use it, but control is the point: the light has to serve the story, not the weather,” he tells us. In today’s world of content creators, it’s wonderful to see such a strong commitment to flash — as a Nikon rep once told me when I showed him the work that I personally do using flash.

Igor’s process is typically something that starts in his head: and it’s usually a single woman in an impossible situation of some sort. Then he thinks about this idea until he makes it happen. It often involves a lot of problem solving like how to get a car into a tree or onto a lake, how to hang people safely, and how to light it all at night.

“I’d rather solve one hard real scene than fake an easy one.”

Igor tends to shoot in color and then converts to black and white to make the scene seem like more of a dream. In post-production, he works the contrast to let the darkest parts fall into total darkness. Psychologically, this makes the eyes lean into the frame to understand what it being seen. Everything is built and, “performed” in front of the camera instead of composited together later on. After some retouching that Igor says serves “believability, not spectacle,” he’s all done.

The project is Nocturne, an ongoing series of staged black-and-white photographs. Each image places a single woman inside a quietly wrong situation and holds the tension between tenderness and danger. It has been shown in three solo exhibitions in Russia, including an immersive show projected across every wall of the room, and gathered into a self-published two-part monograph.

Igor Brekhov on his series, NOCTURNE

Igor’s work demonstrates something we rarely ever see: surreal photography combined with a ton of in-camera world building, emotional attachment, and the elicitation of a feeling beyond just recognizing immediately what’s in front of you. And truthfully, this is very much what the world needs right now.