Boys & Tattoos

2013 – 2018

In recent years, the trend of getting tattoos has become more and more popular among young people. At least in my native city (Nikolayev, Ukraine). As lots of young people don’t have enough money, a lot of them practice getting their tattoos at a friend – masters’ home at a low price. I get the feeling that now every second person has got a tattoo. It’s possible that soon those who don’t have patterns or inscriptions on their body will stand out from the crowd more than those who have them. When my close friends started to show me their first, and then the next tattoos that they have got “at the apartment of the dude”, I realized that I couldn’t leave it just like that. But at once I knew that I wasn’t going to photograph guys with well-done and high quality tattoos – it’s not for me. I decided that I would do a project about the cheap, funny and trash ones. With the help of my friends, I started finding different guys, taking pictures of their tattoos and short interviews. I was interested in finding out what influenced the choice of the sketch, how did they make a decision and in what conditions it was happening. Their stories have surpassed all expectations.