COMMON PEOPLE
Common People
CREDITS
Even if homosexuality is becoming more and more accepted, unfortunately there are countries where the LGBT community is still oppressed. Photographer Anton Shebetko (b.1990), born in Kyiv and based in Amsterdam, focuses on the things gay people have to endure in homophobic and conservative countries such as Ukraine.
Afraid that the truth about their sexuality is discovered, and that this will harm their personal life or career, the guys portrayed here find themselves and others creating a closed and hidden community. Shebetko represents this by hiding their faces through several interventions, while portraiture is usually perceived as a very honest genre of photography. It’s symbolic for the grey area in which they live. Homosexuality may not be punishable in Ukraine, but it is looked down upon, so much so that gay people feel forced to form a hidden community. Most of them are still in the closet.
