My name is Dina Dubrovskaya, I am 24 years old and come from Saransk, Russia. I am a self-taught photographer mostly interested in portraiture.
For my current project “instant yearbook” I photograph the pupils of small village schools in the region of Mordovia, Russia. Some of these schools will be closed next year for the lack of students, so this project is a try to create a yearbook of sorts for them. For the portraits I don’t ask children to strike some particular pose, they smile if they want to, though often they prefer to stay serious and look directly in the camera. This project started as a wish to peek inside small, kind of isolated places and has really become about meeting bright, rebellious, beautiful young people who have so many stories to tell.
