Coming.....
My father owned a photography studio in Vanadzor. He was a decent photographer in his early days, but over time, his work became less inspired, losing its taste and quality—much like my hometown and country.
My grandmother would prepare lunch for my father—usually soup—and put it in a pot without a lid. She’d place the pot in a bag, and I had to carry it to my father’s studio, which was a 15-minute walk from our home. By the time I arrived, half the soup had spilled because there was no lid and I couldn’t carry it upright. My father would always end up hungry but stayed slim because of it.
While he ate the remnants of the soup, I would look around his studio, fascinated by his cameras and the massive spotlights. In the center of the room stood a large wooden box—a very old camera. The floor was covered with a filthy, ancient carpet. On the wall hung a backdrop: a garish painting of a waterfall. Every time I looked at it, my eyes hurt. It was tasteless. It was terrible.
That’s where I learned how not to photograph.
Upcoming Project.
No Poetry. No Words. Just Life.
Life is neither beauty nor ugliness. It is not a poem, nor a narrative we create to understand ourselves. It simply is. It is breath and gaze, forgetting and fading. It is what happens when no one is watching. Life is the space between what we might dare to say and what remains unspeakable.
Faces hold everything. Not stories, but fragments. The trembling of loss in the corner of a mouth, the silent triumph in a pair of eyes. Skin is not a canvas—it is a landscape shaped by time, etched by pain, and embraced by love. Some lines speak of freedom, others of chains that were never broken.
There is no room here for metaphors. No attempt to beautify or organize chaos. Life is raw. Flesh. Dust. It is not polished, not structured. The people in these images are no longer just people—they become pure presence, existence itself. A face is not a mask but a question that no one can answer: What are you? What have you ever been?
This project does not seek truth. Truth is just a word, an invention we cling to so we don’t fall into the void. I do not believe in words the way others do. The Bible says: “In the beginning was the Word.” And with the Word, everything began. But I do not believe in the Bible. I believe in life. And life does not begin with words. It begins with being.
And yet—here are these words. A compromise. Because without them, we cannot reach each other. Words, inadequate and clumsy, are all we have. We must make compromises to bridge the silence, even though every word fails to capture the essence of life.
No poetry. No words. No stories. Just life—unfiltered, relentless, pure. It does not need to be understood. It demands only to be endured, to be seen, to be felt. It is perfect in its refusal to conform. Life is.
Hi, I’m Tigran Hovhannisyan, a photographer with a love for storytelling through images. I focus on fashion and portrait photography, drawing inspiration from cinematic and artistic styles. My goal is to create simple yet meaningful visuals that leave an impression.
THE END
At the end of the day, when we are finished with the photos and my models wonder how beautifully I have photographed them, I say that it was not me, it was you. You gave me only what I should capture, the rest was you. I just watched and spoke to you.
