© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

Try to remember a moment from when you were young. What did it feel like then? How
does it feel now? Can you describe it?
Can you pinpoint a place or are we back where we started?
The echoes of my memory fade and swell over time; they tell a story that I want to
recall. I can remember the taste, but I can’t quite taste it.
These are closer to memories of a memory,
like the pages of so many photo albums that were never made. Like the reflections of a
world that I thought were real. I can remember the sound, but I can’t quite hear it.

– Jake Nemirovsky

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

At its core, Big Bug, by Jake Nemirovsky, is a celebration of light and color, evoking feelings of nostalgia and the warmth of times past.

Utilizing photography’s ability to capture and freeze moments in time, Nemirovsky creates a series of images that navigate the passage of time through subtlety. A majority of the work in Big Bug is baked in golden light, illustrating images with a vibrant, seductive palette. However, alongside its aesthetic mark on the book, golden hour is also important conceptually. It functions as a period of transition, building the book’s atmosphere, a collection of images that feel as though we are floating between wistful dreams and memories.

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

Big Bug seems like a natural fit for a series that should be developed into a book. Through thoughtful sequencing, images are stitched together as if they are memories. The form of a book elevates the photographs, allowing the body of work to become stronger than the sum of its parts.

It’s a reminder for us to be more present in the moment, and appreciate the beauty of life. Everything and everyone has their own story, we encounter them in our day-to-day lives but often don’t take the time to acknowledge it. Big Bug reminds us to do so.

It shows us what it’s like to slow down and take the time to truly appreciate the beautiful and mundane moments in life. They’re fleeting and will escape you if you’re not careful, and Nemirovsky masterfully creates a spider web of memories and observations capturing them.

A shadow behind a curtain, a chicken wandering with footprints left behind, a bird in flight, ice cream melting, or a dead bug held and appreciated, each of these seemingly mundane scenes is what makes Big Bug so special. It’s scenes like these, or that of fruit, rotting over time, that create such a wonderful duality. A reminder that the passage of time is inescapable, but that what’s important, is to slow down, and cherish these quiet moments.

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

Big Bug is a love letter to life. The book invites you to be enveloped and lost in its imagery, briefly forgetting the world around you. It lifts you into its warm atmosphere but also carries an underlying sense of melancholy. The duality of times past, and appreciating the beauty, even in moments of rot and death, is core to the project. However, it’s still a duality, and the other half is always present.

Life, and moments of beauty, are fleeting, they don’t last forever. To enjoy and truly cherish the smaller moments in life, it’s important to remember and acknowledge that fact. Nemirovsky’s images, and photography as a whole, depict moments past, a time and place that no longer exists. We can hold on to them as memories, and images allow us to re-enter them, or for others to see the world through our eyes. It’s a way to preserve a feeling, and Big Bug feels like the preservation of a time held dear and not to be forgetten.

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

Alongside the strong imagery, Big Bug is well-considered and designed as a book object. The textured, thick paper adds to the richness of color, and the variety of page layouts lends itself to the concept of flipping through various memories. Also, the yellow binding tape and back cover, share a similar warmth to the sun, contributing even further to the book’s feeling of summer.

Each image is printed with deep, vivid colors, popping off the page. Due to the binding style, the book lays perfectly flat on each spread too; allowing us to spend with each photograph. Which mirrors the book’s theme of slowing down and being present, taking in the beauty of small moments.

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

© Jake Nemirovsky, “Big Bug”

Big Bug, by Jake Nemirovsky, published by Tall Poppy Press, is available now.

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Jake Nemirovsky (b. 1994, Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian photographer whose work sits at an intersection between documentary and personal narrative. He focuses on using people, place, objects and landscape to interact with the viewer, forging collaborative perspectives on the lived experience.

Jake’s photographic practice blurs the distinction between what’s real and fictional, reassessing documentary image making conventions in light of an unfolding, post-truth world. He’s interested in pairing images to form visual cues in incidental moments of the everyday to connote feelings of familiarity. Jake received a BA Photography (Honours) from RMIT, Melbourne, Australia (2020).

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Jake Benzinger (he/him) is a photographer, book artist, and writer based in Rockland, Maine; he received his BFA in photography from Lesley University, College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA. His work explores self-created mythos, and through the dislocation of space, he weaves together imagery to construct a world that exists in the liminal—navigating the space between fiction and reality and investigating themes of identity, mysticism, animism, and death.

His work has recently been featured by Float Magazine, Transference Magazine, and Fraction Magazine, and has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Jake’s body of work, Like Dust Settling in a Dim-Lit Room (Or Starless Forest), was self-published, shortlisted for the 2023 Lucie Photo Book Prize, and sold out of its first edition of hardcover books. A second edition was released in late 2023, coinciding with a solo show at the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Jake is currently the assistant gallery manager, associate curator of photography, and curator of books at Blue Raven Gallery, a content editor for Lenscratch, and the founder/director of wych elm press.

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