In this series, photography moves closer to painting. Using Harman Switch Azure film, intense colour and optical blur, the artist treats the photographic image as a painterly surface. These techniques shift the focus away from photography as documentation and towards the experience of the image itself — its colour, light, movement and materiality. The figures seem to dissolve into their surroundings, becoming less like individual subjects and more like fleeting, almost ghostly forms, suspended somewhere between reality, memory and dream.
Photographs taken during the artistic residency at the HSE Art & Design School x Nanlite Light Photography Laboratory for the 2026 Pingyao International Photography Festival (PIP).Sponsored by @nanlite_global
Shot at @hsedesign
Setup and support by @silasvetaLecturer and Nanlite representative: @xulong.zhang
Head coordinator: @alisaa_a
Head of collaboration: Irina Chmyreva
Special thanks: Liu Xiaoxia
Photo
Maria Elyutina
Art direction & Production
@alisaa_a @be_step
Makeup, hair
@emmashrayber
Model 1
@amonika.barkhan
Model 2
@kokoreva_mar1a
Design Look 1
@be_step
Design Look 2
@be_step
Look 3
@aleksandra.ligay
Look 4
@ilyashugaev
