Double vision: photographer Nikita Pirogov captures the beauty of compare and contrast

Nikita Pirogov’s Diptychs series represents a search for a deeper symbolic connection between people and place. The images are the product of the Russian photographer's travels across the varied landscape of Europe. "Whenever I crossed the border into Russia, Europe always seemed a world away and I had to search for the starting point once more,” says Pirogov. By comparing architecture with people’s inner feelings, a new layer is created — what the photographer calls the inner landscape. “They say that if you live in another country you develop another personality by speaking another language, navigating other symbolic codes and existing in other systems of thought in the world. Even the light is different.” This series of diptychs is an attempt to represent this change metaphorically, by juxtaposing two images connected either in tone or by certain graphic elements.