The project was made together with a photographer Mike Ross, a person whom I didn’t know before the project was started. I usually thank a lot of people when I finish a project but here the only person I have to thank is Mike. Thank you so much for taking part, sharing your thoughts and images, an opportunity to be heard, an inspiration and of course for text editing. Without you this project wouldn’t be possible.

Alena: When the idea for this project first came to me I was inspired by music. I’ve dealt with music for several years even though I’m not a professional musician and just played in some bands. In my opinion, music is a collective art form and photography is really very individual.

When you make music it’s a rather ordinary thing that you need someone else to play with or to create it with you. When you’re a photographer you just act on your own. I wondered if it was possible to make something like a jam session in music but with photography.

At first you have almost no idea what it will be like in the end or what kind of result you will get, but you start acting. Like saying a phrase and having someone answer it, and you continue and so on.

I tried to start this project several times with others but I don’t think they were all collective people; they liked to work on their own and then I met Mike. When we started the project I didn’t know anything about him at all, and when we finished the project I started to feel like we were old friends and that we had made something whole. It was really like a jam session that turned out to be an interesting piece of music.

Our project consisted of three parts. The first part is the start of a communication. For me it was like: “Oh there is someone near me!” When I make a photo someone answers it with something I couldn’t ever imagine. When I see an answer I start to think about it and then I immediately have another idea. These new images that come into my head are interesting and unusual even for me.

The first part ends with a photo called Open door by Mike and I remember when we were at this part of the project I felt like I had no idea what to do after that. Then Mike said that he would make one more image and he made a self-portrait in a mirror.

We started the second part of the project in which we shared some of our experiences. This part was more personal and maybe the hardest because it turned out that we both had many bad things happen in our lives.

This part ended with my photo and then Mike said he was sort of out of ideas and thought that were starting to make something pessimistic. I agreed and we started the third part with a theme I would call «looking forward».

Now when I look on the whole project I completely understand that there are none of my photos or photos of Mike’s. There’s something whole and our photos don’t live on their own and really speak with each other.

For me it was great experience and I’m very thankful for Mike because he appeared suddenly in my life and in this project. This project was made by two people with different ways of seeing, different techniques, different countries, different cultures, different ages and different sex. For me as for photographer it was really an amazing collaboration.

Mike: When I first saw Alena’s post about doing a photo project I was intrigued. I wrote her to ask if I could be a part of it. I had no idea what to expect but working with someone I had never met and who lived thousands of miles away was exciting. I had no preconceived ideas but was open to whatever she had in mind.

Now that the project is complete, I see that people are basically the same everywhere. They have the same hopes and fears and try to express themselves in one way or another. We both chose photography while others might choose different forms of art or even a career like teaching or psychotherapy.

November 2019