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Photo essay “Between a Rock and a Far Place” from Niue in April’s issue of The Caravan Magaine, India

www.caravanmagazine.in/photo-essay/the-inheritance-of-loss-pacific-island-deserted

Absence is the crux of “Between a Rock and a Far Place,” a documentary series shot by the photographer Vlad Sokhin in 2014, over a week’s stay on the tiny island of Niue. The work is part of a larger project he is shooting in various Pacific islands. Sokhin’s initial vision for “Between a Rock and a Far Place,” he said, “was to show life on the island that was largely abandoned by its people”; but when he experienced Niue’s desolation, he “realised that it would be quite challenging to show life at all.” A large share of his photographs feature deserted places, and he accentuates their emptiness through creative use of angles and depth-of-field. Sokhin faced a difficult beginning to his time on the island. Hunting for sparks of life, he trawled aimlessly through morose nightclubs and depleted markets.