sepia diary

About sepia diary
These are photographic notes of latvian photographer Anja Djondjoua.

I do not remember much how it all started and got to be the way it is now. I recall being small and ugly, with a huge round nose and no mirrors to look into, except for a shiny german-silver soup spoon. Or the well, but the water was cold and too distant to actually see the face. Or reflection in the kitchen window, in the evening, only shape visible as the objects behind me were brighter and larger.

Completely alone. No venturing out before dusk for fear of bees. That’s how the whole summer went. I spent summers in Novy Pogost, at my grandmother sister’s place. Funny, those three summer months are all I remember out of the first seven years of my existence.

Nor do I remember much about afterwards. This is just as well; I would not tell anybody anyway, out of self-pity. Or because I would feel sorry for you, as your sadness afterwards would make the world taste a little bitter. Flip-side of the photograph is the most interesting. Sometimes it has notes about the picture, or the location of the instant photo booth, or dedication, or the name of the photographer, or something totally irrelevant to the picture.

As all the photos in this album have a common flip-side, I would like to note that for the past fifteen years I either take pictures for no particular reason, or devote all my efforts to taking them.