Translation: Biljana Grujoska Trajkovska
A lonely walk on the street, a quiet conversation between two, an empty room, the smell of a morning greeting at the store, a child’s cry of excitement, the suspicious look of a stranger, the sound of waves… We almost never think about moments around us, what happens to be here and now.
The amazing power of photography to communicate a strong message and content of a single moment is to serve its aim in the “Short Stories” series of photographs by Dragi Nedelchevski.
Placed in the dimension between street and documentary photography, experiencing the “Short stories” we are facing intrusive captured moments catching our thought.
These are photographs brought forth by life, people, human interactions and conditions. They reveal small true stories about real people, mutual connections, attitude with regard to individuality, or space. They are not “pleasant” and they are not set. That is just not their purpose. They are honest and related to life as it is – subtle, spontaneous, nonessential but essential, cruel, happy, nil. Spiced with a string of criticism toward society, real cruelness and “direct look in the eye” they offer subjective reality. They do not reveal much, yet, they leave space for free interpretation and unique individual view of the story.
The viewer cannot discover questions asked, nor answers offered in Dragi Nedelchevski’s photographs. The photographer simply provides his “stories”, unburdened and free, with a dose of confidence that the viewer will return to the photography, stay longer, to only justify Suzan Sontag’s memento mori mo¬ment in the individual story at first sight.
Another distinguishing element of Nedelchevski’s work is his power to introduce obvious human presence where there is no human subject. To remind his audience of not only human as a being, but of human inherent states such as loneliness, fear, conflict, apathy, life, death…
Nedelchevski’s “Short Stories” make the viewers remember mankind, have their attention turned towards recognizing the essential. One of the artist’s messages is to stop being a rat in the race. To reach for a place however bitter it might feel. One can always rely on hope, anyhow.