Ruslan Lobanov has been making pictures for more than two decades and shot erotic stories all over the globe. The 42-year old Donetsk native is not a war correspondent or a photo journalist: he specializes in staged photography.
Lobanov has created numerous calendars over the years and published critically acclaimed books, including Nudes in the City, The Wrong Door, and Chateau. His latest book is titled Wartime Sketches.
We sat down with Lobanov on Reitarska St. in downtown Kyiv on a cold wet evening in late January to discuss his latest project, war and future plans.
Q: What’s the connection between your Wartime Sketches, you and The Great War?
A: Wartime Sketches is about optimism. If you look carefully at the photographs in the book, the message is not sexual. Even the photos of fully naked women can’t be called excessively provocative. I realized that coming up with a concept for the book addressing the war directly would not work. We live in the modern world. Yes, it’s a fact that war is underway, that Russian invaders are running amok in eastern Ukraine murdering people and dropping bombs. But Wartime Sketches makes no attempt to illustrate bloody disaster.
My intention was to embed the correct message in each photograph, through the models, props and secondary details, turning the entire work into a kind of Trojan’s Horse that conveys a classic story about optimism, one without grief or somber regret. No one who has seen the book can pick out a photograph and complain that it is somehow inappropriate, considering Ukraine’s current circumstances. Each can be reproduced and exhibited in the United States or Europe at galleries and exhibitions. Wartime Sketches is a weapon of art. The recurring message is our celebration on the first day after victory. That idea was baked into the project before shooting even started. The starting point of the book is Putin’s death, Ukraine’s victory and the Kremlin engulfed in flames.
One bonus for taking this approach is the feedback I got working with stylists, actresses and others involved in the 18-month project. That came from the tension of being actually bombed by Russia in Kyiv. The project gave us all a chance to focus on being creative and doing something positive, instead of wallowing in despair and going nuts. Looking back, I understand now why proprietors of the venues we worked at gained confidence: they saw us transcending the confusion and horror to make art. The project lightened everyone up.
Wartime Sketches is a weapon of art. The recurring message is our celebration on the first day after victory. That idea was baked into the project before shooting even started. The starting point of the book is Putin’s death, Ukraine’s victory and the Kremlin engulfed in flames.
Q: Did any event during process of making Wartime Sketches overtake you or the project?
A: We included some events, such as the bombing of the Kerch Strait Bridge, in some props and adapted historical, classical allusions in others. It was a work in progress, as it were.
Each of the 130 photographs sends a strong message. If in my other books there are impactful and more impactful photographs, in this one each image is designed to send a strong message.
Q: What is it that you work to express through your photography?
A: I take pictures of stories I have already invented. I’m not hunting for anything new. Everything has already been recorded in my head. All that’s left is for me to push the button once or twice. I know what I’m taking a picture of, where and why. The only variables involved might include the mood of subjects.
Q: Have you always worked this way?
A: I have evolved. The past was a time of searching and experimentation, making mistakes. Eventually, I arrived at the stage where my instruments and approach were tailored for Big Format photography. The large format system is a slower process, one where the head – not the hand – is most important.
Q: Can you speak a little about growing up Donetsk and how that affected your vision as an artist?
A: I was very lucky to have the best older sister in the world. In her youth she was immersed in fashion and went on to work as a fashion designer in Kyiv. I grew up in a creative household. I read literature about fashion, artists and was interested in the theatre. When I was 5, 6, 7 years old I wasn’t surrounded by posters of Schwarzenegger’s The Terminator or racey calendars like my friends, but black and white photographs of models wearing interesting clothes at fashion shoots. Photography when I was in high school was a hobby for most kids and I was not an exception. I had two cameras, first a Zenit that was a present and then a Kodak camera I bought in Moscow in 1992 for the [then] astronomical price of $65. I enjoyed taking pictures with them as a hobby, not with the idea I would become a fashion photographer.
The first time I made any money taking pictures was when I was as a student at the foreign language institute in Donetsk. I belonged to the college’s unionized theatre club. That was my introduction to photographing choreographed scenes on the stage. I understood then that planning the shots and taking them would mean two or three weeks of work culminating in 15-20 seconds of actual picture taking. This impressed upon me that genius and talent alone were not a replacement for preparation. Work was required. I also took photos at four or five weddings, but these don’t count, because these were my friends and acquaintances getting married.
After graduating from the foreign language institute, I worked for the marketing department of Foxtrot, one of the country’s largest national electronic retail chains. The company invested in its employees. I learned a lot about marketing strategy and product placement. I left the company in 2004 after being promoted because the new job meant working a half-day on Saturdays. That interfered with my weekend recreation, trips from Donetsk to Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and other cities. So, I quit. My boss asked me to reconsider and gave me one month’s leave to think it over, but I didn’t go back. Instead, I started working as a photographer in a local studio, as the second camera man.
I took lots pictures there for clients, portfolio and wedding pictures. I also took pictures for myself of half-dressed women wearing fashionable clothes. My friends said I was crazy. “Why are you doing that if no one is paying you?” they asked.
By 2006 and 2007, I was already searching for my own unique style. I was still taking pictures for calendars and private clients, using film and digital cameras, but was taking lots of pictures for myself. From 2008, I transitioned to Big Format photography preferred by larger clients, including lingerie brands and catalog companies from Kyiv. They asked me, then a no-name photographer, to make their products memorable. This was a turning point. I moved to Kyiv.
The financial crisis of 2008 hit Ukraine hard and many of my colleagues and clients suffered during the market downturn. I, however, wasn’t complaining. I wasn’t spoiled and accustomed to taking pictures for my own enjoyment. I kept moving forward. I started working on my first book, Nudes in the City, which eventually was published in 2015. During the intervening years I worked on correcting what I did not like about how my photographs were printed in other works for clients and customers.
In 2009, I produced my first calendar. And it was awful: the colors were off and I didn’t understand the pre-photograph formatting, color correction and printing process. This notwithstanding, my friends and clients still supported me and the work. The photos themselves were fine, but not how they were rendered in the printing process, because the electronic files containing them were not correctly compressed. I published my next calendar in 2012, themed Nudes in the City, with much better results. Since then, I have published themed calendars with the same printing house every year, including Wartime Sketches, for 2024. The experience each year has allowed me to conduct what I consider to be long, controlled experiment and to refine the design, color selection and printing of my work.
Q: How has being Ukrainian influenced who you are as an artist or how you became one?
A: I think being a Ukrainian artist, growing up in Europe as an artist in Ukraine, providing one knows what one wants, provides enormous advantages. Growing up as a young artist in western Europe would not have allowed me to organize and perfect the work and production process as I have here. I don’t think I would have been able to achieve such quick and positive results. I don’t believe a young artist [in western Europe] would be able to personally master book publishing, including control over the printing process itself. I am certain that opportunities for this are greater here, because creative artists in Ukraine hold all the cards in their own hands. Again, the most important thing is to know what you want to achieve in the first place.
Q: How has living in Kyiv during the last two years of war changed you?
A: It’s been the most productive period of my life. I have taken more pictures than ever before, except during December of 2022, when there was no electricity. I have been riding a wave of optimism, perhaps because I came to realize that it’s important to live each moment to the fullest, because you never know when a bomb will drop on your head. That thought makes me try to be as creative and productive as possible every day, even when logistics are complicated.
Q: What’s next?
A: I continue to make photographs in the vein of Wartime Sketches, putting them in a drawer, while thinking about concepts for two possible future projects. The first is a picture book with text set in mythical village, The Fairy Tale of One Village, set in Ukraine, and the second, titled Confessions, a black-and-white book based on a recurring theme in my previous works. I have been mulling both projects for several years.
Q: How often to you shoot these days?
A: Twice a week. Because it’s winter Most of my time these days is devoted to inventing and making the props for what I take pictures of.
Q: Are you open to proposals, ideas, projects commissioned by others?
A: I am approachable. I am open to new ideas, collaborators, but planning a project and actually having a plan to make it are two different things.