Zheka Khalétsky

He drags his camera through the guts of the city like it’s a bottle of rotgut he can’t put down. October nights, July sweaty eves, doesn’t matter; he’s out there on the cracked promenade, knees shot, lungs full of salt and cheap tobacco, snapping the rusted railings, the stained corners, the smeared lights that make it look like this city’s crying but too drunk to wipe its face. His photographs ain’t that pretty to most; they’re reflections in a muddy and sparkling puddle you find next to you on a cold pavement after a restless night at the Central Station. Black and white or poorly coloured, grainy as a hangover, brittle as a broken bottle his frames are. He catches the Atlantic yawning, the lamps puking gold into the cracks, the empty benches where love went to die. No filters, no bullshit—just the raw stink of concrete and indifference, framed like a punch you didn’t see coming. He don’t talk much. Just clicks the shutter, drinks the night, and lets the pictures do the screaming. They say he’s got an eye; I say he’s got a wound that won’t close, and the camera’s the scab he keeps picking. Every shot’s a confession, every shadow’s a sin. And when you look at his work, you see an old world, a weathered world, a lonely world, qui...