I haven’t stopped wanting to photograph dugouts, and I’ve once again become eager to capture the nighttime courtyard spaces. Over the years that I’ve traveled to various places and shot them at night, I’ve drawn some conclusions.
I’m only interested in settlements that have courtyard spaces — public areas among apartment buildings.
In villages with two or three streets and a private sector, there’s nothing interesting. Near large cities and district centers, the private sector is mind‑numbingly boring: brand‑new cottages with solid fences. You have to travel far to find a beautiful old village.
Also, in small villages, there are often problems with street lighting, and without light, it’s just not the same.
Botovo, a village in the Cherepovets District of the Vologda Region, meets all my criteria for walks and photography. There are dugouts here (they will be featured in another post), there are high‑rise buildings, a slight elevation difference, and a pond.
In the simplest terms: to go somewhere and take a photo of something, there needs to be something there. Although even that doesn’t always work.
I really liked Botovo, especially by the pond. It’s strange to hear the status of “village” when you see five‑story buildings. In my understanding, a village looks completely different.
After all, I used to choose locations with apartment buildings in mind, but I got carried away with just digging earth‑shelters and completely forgot about everything else that’s no less important.
It's like I need all these places, points in space, for something, like I'm putting together some kind of puzzle...
Not even for photographic images, but purely for the mind, for the memory, as if I’m building some kind of map of spaces in my head and mentally traveling through them. But to expand the map, you need to learn new things... to see, to perceive, to feel.