• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • ABOUT US
  • MEDIA
  • PRIVACY
  • TERMS
  • DMCA
  • CONTACT US
  • AUTHORS
DoYouRemember?

DoYouRemember?

The Home of Nostalgia

  • STORIES
    • MUSIC
    • ICONS
  • GAMES
    • SHOWDOWN
    • GUESS
    • RIDDLES
    • QUIZZES
    • MISMATCH
  • NEWS
    • Obituaries
  • VIDEOS
  • DYR Book
  • Shop DYR

Stories

A Photographer Spends A Decade Photographing Same Bench, Capturing More Than He Expected

by Zack Walkter

5 years ago

One of the most ubiquitous sights in any city around the world is the humble park bench: a meeting spot for friends, a place to grab lunch or perhaps a smoke, and maybe a quick snooze. Usually, such mundane activities fade easily into the background of our busy lives and we would hardly stop to notice the goings on around a small public meeting spot, but for Ukrainian photographer Yevgeniy Kotenko, one such bench has turned into the rich body of photography spanning over a decade titled On the Bench.

In a working-class suburb of Kyiv, friends gather…

facebook.com/Jeka Kotenko

Lovers meet…

facebook.com/Jeka Kotenko

And drinkers drink.

facebook.com/Jeka Kotenko

While the faces change, the park bench (barring the occasional paint-job) remains the same.

facebook.com/Jeka Kotenko

This photo series, shot from the fourth-floor window of Yevhen Kotenko’s parents’ kitchen, captures life around a wooden bench in the Dniprovskyy suburb of the Ukrainian capital. (The exact location of the bench is here.)

facebook.com/Jeka Kotenko

Photographer Kotenko (pictured) began capturing life on the bench in 2007 or 2008. The 36-year-old told RFE/RL: “I didn’t give myself any time limits or goals, I just went to the kitchen and looked out the window. Usually, there was something to see.”

facebook.com/Jeka Kotenko

Kotenko says he has fond childhood memories of the neighborhood that he grew up in, “but there were a lot of bad things, too, that are better not to think about.”

facebook.com/Jeka Kotenko
Page Page 1 of 3
Previous article: Beetlejuice Turns 30: See The Cast Then And Now
Next Post: New Study Says No One Over This Age Should Wear Jeans

Primary Sidebar

© 2023 DoYouRemember? Inc.

  • about us
  • media
  • privacy
  • terms
  • DMCA
  • CONTACT US
  • AUTHORS