Zheka Khalétsky

I photograph what most people walk past without seeing.
A bush under a streetlight after midnight. The profile of a face hiding inside a centuries-old stone wall. The skeletal architecture of winter branches lit by sodium vapor. These are not arranged compositions — they are found ones, quiet moments where light, texture, and time have already done the work before I arrived.
My practice is rooted in nocturnal and botanical photography, shot almost exclusively at night or in low atmospheric light across northern Portugal. I am drawn to scenes that sit at the border between the real and the surreal — landscapes that feel like they belong to a dream you half-remember. A single street lamp can turn an ordinary hillside into a stage. A patch of moss on granite can become a living portrait.
I process my images minimally. No heavy compositing, no artificial skies, no digital manipulation. What you see is very close to what was there — just isolated, framed, and allowed to speak. I work in muted earth tones, warm sepias, deep blacks, and the occasional green that pushes through the dark. The palette is deliberate: these are photographs meant to feel like objects, like something you might find rather than something that was made.
I believe ...