Bieke Depoorter

I never felt comfortable with street photography. If I take snapshots of total strangers, it feels a bit like I am stealing something from them. This picture comes from my first book, Ou Menya, which was my graduation project when studying photography. My initial idea was taking pictures in small villages alongside the Trans-Siberian Railway. Because I could not afford hotels, someone wrote me a letter in Russian that allowed me to ask people on the street if I could spend a night in their homes. This is how, one night at a time, I became part of a stranger's family. Surprising-ly, this opened a whole new world for me. I finally started to feel comfortable taking pictures. Without knowing one word of the language, I was able to achieve intimacy with families that I had only just met. These short, but very intense encounters, like the one represented in this photograph, became very important to me, and I continued this practice in many countries.