Guest Photo of the Day: Kristina

Kristina, originally uploaded by Anastasiya Lazurenko.

It's unusual in this era to come across a photographer who still uses film rather than digital. Anastasiya Lazurenko's photos bear an interesting texture and grain because of this. It doesn't convince me to go back to film, but I enjoy the ways she uses the grain to convey mood, as with this beautiful portrait. (Here's another good example, a pregnant self-portrait.) There's something pensive and intimate about the pose and expression of the model, and I wonder if the photo would be as powerful if the light on her skin were completely smooth in the manner of a digital image. In the end, though, it's not the grain of the photo that makes this a great image, for me, but rather the moment Lazurenko has managed to capture in the eyes of her subject.