all photos © Masha Ivashintsova / Masha Galleries. In this photo above, Masha’s friends in Tblisi, Georgian SSR, 1989.
Masha Ivashintsova is a russian photographer who was heavily engaged in the Leningrad poetic and photography underground movement of the 1960−80s. Born in 1942, Masha was taking pictures from her teenage years up until a year before she died, portraiting everyday life with a very peculiar aesthetic. Most of the photos were taken with a Leica IIIc and a Rolleiflex, while occasionally, Masha was also using Zorki and Ikoflex.
But the photos were taken for her own pleasure and passion, as she never shared her works with anyone, not even her family or the men she loved in her life, like photographer Boris Smelov, poet Viktor Krivulin and linguist Melvar Melkumyan, who were personalities of their time, and to whom she felt she could not compare. Believing no-one would take her seriuosly, she never showed her photography works, her diaries and poetry to anyone during her life.
Long after her death, happened in 2000, her daughter discovered in the family attic around 30,000 negatives of her works, which finally came into light showcasing that those photos weren’t just a hobby for her mother to get through life, but had something special that catch the eye of others too. The negatives are currently in digitization phase, and Masha’s works now can get the recognition they deserve, which is so long over-due.
Visit the website: http://mashaivashintsova.com/
and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/masha_ivashintsova/
