Andre Ermolaev's passion for photography began with a seventh-grade school, when his parents gave him a camera for the first time. Although photography does not become Andre's profession, it has become a very important part of his life.

We are all used to the fact that a regular photograph shows an easily recognizable world. Usually it is not difficult to understand what is reflected in a picture. However, if you take a look at your shot from a bit different perspective you might get an image which does not seem to be real. This is exactly what happened to me when I was on a small aircraft and for the first in my life saw rivers in Iceland from the height of a bird flight. The scenery was so fantastic and unexpected, that it made me embark on a whole project devoted to the exploration of this beauty. Every summer I went to Iceland to spend several days flying and searching for views and inspiration. It took me six long years, but the result was worth it. Iceland is the country of volcanoes, rivers and glaciers and flowing rivers bring large amounts of fine-grained dark sand. Along the ocean coast it might stretch for dozens of kilometers forming gigantic, dazzling black beaches. Volcanic sand is not homogenous and its surface is not smooth. When water covers it, it paints extraordinary many - colored patterns. These patterns are so diverse and unique for every river that one is truly amazed at the nature’s tremendous capacity to create incredible things. Milk flows from glaciers, deep blue ones from mountains, and others - painted weaves of colors. From a bird’s eye view one can embrace the abstract painting of majestic nature – she has created unbelievable combinations of streams and flows. Generally on photos there are objects related to reality: a flight of birds or trace of a car on the beach, but I am mostly attracted by pictures where eyes cannot rest on anything, where scale has been lost and space is unbounded. Is it a river? Martian scenery? Or maybe it’s a macro shot of some kind of a tracery? To my mind, these are the most intriguing photos.