Photographer Alexander Smirnov is a regular guest of Russian photo festivals and participant of prestigious competitions, the creator of the art space "To yourself", a place for informal meetings and master classes of Russian photographers in St. Petersburg.
Smirnov's artistic style is distinguished by his commitment to a traditional approach to photographic genres and, at the same time, his desire for radical techniques that change the stereotypes of perception of photographic images. The juxtaposition of familiar techniques of journalistic essays and an unusual and non-accidental view of the city, images of mass media formed by a camera and a multi-lens noticeably distinguish Alexander Smirnov's work from the works of other St. Petersburg authors.
Research related to reflection on the past within the framework of modern realities, reflecting important events of the present, recurring in the spiral of history, where there is constant variability and a multiplicity of event variants in the flow of events. Expanding the boundaries of reality, exploring the line between the "known" and the "unknown", in search of a "social environment" and cultural heritage.
Born in 1963 in Leningrad,
he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics (1988),
the Galperin Faculty of Photojournalists at the St. Petersburg Union of Journalists (2004).
Member of the photo club of the Vyborg Palace of Culture since 2003.
He is the author and participant of more than 40 solo and group exhibitions of artistic photography.
Winner of a number of awards at Russian and international photography competitions.
The author's works are in public and private collections, including: - ROSPHOTO Museum and Exhibition Center -- Béton Visual Culture Center
- The State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg Peter and Paul Fortress
- MAMM (Moscow House of Photography, Moscow)
- Museum of the History of Photography at the Holy Trinity Novo-Golutvin Convent.