The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay
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Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
Mar 2016 back issue
by Mindaugas Kavaliauskas
During his extensive travels Mindaugas Kavaliauskas – photographer, curator
and expert – frequently flying to and from exhibitions, festivals, portfolio reviews
in Europe and beyond its borders, discovered that a camera could be used to
depict life, where for most of us time stands still.
In the 21st century, flying commercial aviation is regarded as being as normal
as taking a bus. Nowadays, it is a part of our routine, which constantly reveals
itself in new faces. It joins up space and time, in which the advertising image
crashes into reality. Ease meets fatigue, comfort meets stress, luxury meets
tawdriness, dreams hit into material reality and the feeling of safety is
overtaken by that of vulnerability and discontent.
For the photographer, time spent in airports and airliners is a unique
experience. While traveling within Europe and occasionally traveling to
America, Asia or Australia, Mindaugas Kavaliauskas observed the life around
him with a growing appetite for views to become images. Because, for the most part, his travel was related to his
photography, he soon found himself with a camera idling in his bag and he started to take it out to freeze the moments
of air travel.
The paradox goes that the alienation of society and the sense of fear of something unexpected, has originated from the
airplane-driven disaster of 9/11, that, amongst other things, transformed people’s attitude towards photography.
Obviously, a person with a camera in today’s airports and on-board flights is far from always being welcomed. Often,
Mindaugas would be asked to switch his camera off tbecause “crew cannot be photographed”. Sometimes after x-ray
control, it would be checked for explosives. In some cases, his camera would become a means of extended
communication or even a shortcut to friendship with fellow travellers, cabin crew members or agents of airports and
airlines.
What today is a series of images about air travel, initially was a step-by-step accumulation of images about our world,
the dwellers of which, to comfort themselves, would say “I fly, therefore I am”.
Morning departure from Frankfurt to Paris. 2005.
Boarding a flight to Bergamo at Vilnius airport (VNO). 2011.
Approaching JFK. 2011.
Comic strips on the way from Kaunas to Hahn. 2010.
In-flight mag before departure from Prague to Madrid.
2009.
A nap on the way to New York. 2010.
Passenger from South Africa onboard a flight from Amsterdam to New York offered some more ice cream. 2010.
Germans Guenther and Doris on their way to a friend's party in New York. 2009.
Drinks and meals onboard Lithuanian Airlines flight to Franfurt. 2005.
Just arrived in Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS). 2010.
Singapore Changi (SIN). 2009.
Logging to and over at Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS). 2012.
Winter evening over the Baltic sea on the way from Helsinki to Geneva. 2013.
Welcome home to Melbourne (MEL). 2009.
Luncheon on the grass outside Beauvais airport (BVA). 2012.
Beijing Capital (PEK). 2008.
Mindaugas Kavaliauskas bag as seen by the security service of his home airport - Kaunas (KUN). 2013
Self-portrait onboard a Boeing 757 over the Atlantic. 2009.
Waiting for family members to arrive on the outskirts of Vilnius airport (VNO). 2011.