Photo of the week: life becomes art in this Murmansk snowscape

Following last week’s adventures outdoor swimming in wintry Norilsk, this week we return to the Russian North, heading further into the Arctic Circle to Murmansk with Polish-born photographer Tori Ferenc.

“It was my longing for the north that took me there. I love snow and the Arctic regions,” Ferenc told The Calvert Journal.

An enthusiast for black-and-white street photography in the style of Henri Cartier-Bresson, you’ll usually find Ferenc casting her lens closer to home: the documentary photographer has shot the BMXers in her native Poland and a community of Hasidic Jews in north east London, the city she currently calls home.

However, last month she flew to St Petersburg to fulfill her dream Arctic expedition. To get to the final destinaton of Teriberka, Ferenc first completed a 27-hour journey to Murmansk, Russia’s northernmost city.

“We stayed there for three days and took a bus to Teriberka, a small village by the Barents Sea. It was the most magical place I’ve ever seen,” she describes.

This photo was taken by a lake in Murmansk, while the photographer was on her way to visit one of the city’s famed landmarks, the grandiose granite Alyosha monument. The image has the quality of a historic painting with the presence of a grand shipping vessel in the background, figures playing in the foreground and the Russian flag taking centre stage. As with her street photography, even in this frozen far-flung landscape, Ferenc manages to capture the dynamism of the world in a single frame.

“Russia is definitely a very interesting and diverse country. I would love to come back, but next time I will try to learn some Russian,” Ferenc reflects on her trip.

See more photos from her travels on her Instagram.