Oleksandr Shapovalov is a Ukrainian photographic artist, born in Mariupol, who has been living and working in Germany since 2022. For more than seventeen years, he has explored photography as a space of perception and artistic experience. Over time, he developed an authorial approach in which the image is formed entirely in-camera, without digital manipulation.
His artistic path began with reportage photography, where he learned to trust intuition and capture the decisive moment. Later, working in motorsport photography deepened his understanding of speed, dynamics, and temporal tension. This experience shaped his sense of rhythm and movement.
Oleksandr Shapovalov
The Shaman’s Ascent
Created using Oleksandr Shapovalov’s signature in-camera technique, without the use of Photoshop. Limited edition of 7. Alu-Dibond print with shadow gap frame, ready to hang. Custom sizes and finishes available on request, framed or unframed.
Dimension: 85x125x4 cm
Year: 2025
€ 1260
Oleksandr Shapovalov
The Spirit Tree
Created using Oleksandr Shapovalov’s signature in-camera technique, without the use of Photoshop. Limited edition of 7. Alu-Dibond print with shadow gap frame, ready to hang. Custom sizes and finishes available on request, framed or unframed.
Dimension: 85x125x4 cm
Year: 2025
€ 1260
His practice is based on movement, layering, and extended exposure time. Composition arises in a single, concentrated act in which the physical movement of the camera becomes part of the visual language. This approach preserves a sense of immediacy and presence — a state in which sensation precedes analysis and perception remains open.
In this series, Oleksandr explores the forest not as a geographic location, but as an emotional state. Through his authorial in-camera technique, the trees, light, and shadows merge into a single, fluid rhythm. He seeks to preserve that state of “primary discovery”—the way we might have perceived the woods in childhood, before we knew the names of the trees, when everything felt vast, mysterious, and alive.
By intentionally dissolving the boundaries of the branches and the horizon, he create a “dream-space.” This lack of sharp definition is intentional; it provides room for the viewer’s own memories to surface. In the soft textures and deep color gradients, everyone can find their own path, their own silence, and their own story.
Like all his work, these forest images are created entirely in-camera using multiple exposures and intentional movement. There is no digital construction—only the raw, honest vibration of the moment, fine-tuned in color to match the heartbeat of the forest as I felt it.
He refines the colors in the Raw converter not for the sake of “accuracy,” but to transmit his personal emotion and the specific atmosphere he felt during the shoot. That sensation is singular—it is non-transferable and impossible to repeat. Color, for him, is the vessel for that unique, fleeting emotional imprint.
At the heart of Oleksandr’s method is a principled rejection of Photoshop manipulations. By utilizing Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) and multiple exposures, he creates atmospheric, almost dreamlike imagery. In these works, reality is not merely recorded; it is translated into a soft, fluid sense of presence—sometimes barely tangible.
The artist strives to return the viewer to a childlike perception of the world—that state of primary discovery where the gaze is still free from conventional expectations and definitions. He dosn’t seek clarity for the sake of clarity. Instead, he is interested in the moment when vision is just beginning to adapt, when forms lose their boundaries, and the world dissolves into a flow of light and feeling.
In this instability, he find depth and a space for the viewer’s personal experience. His art is an invitation to slow down, to feel the silence, and to allow the gaze to become truly free.
The Oleksandr’s art is an exploration of that fragile moment when an image has not yet become a defined form but remains a pure sensation.He has developed a unique proprietary in-camera technique where the core of every image is born the moment the shutter is pressed. This is his way of capturing the state between clarity and blur, between the recognizable and the intuitive. His works are not digital constructions, but immediate photographic events. They are an invitation to slow down, to feel, and to return to a more attentive and intuitive way of seeing.
Oleksandr Shapovalov
Germany, 1977
Curated by
