There is no single photograph that explains Between Calls by Sergey Bratukhin. There are hundreds of conversations, thousands of frames, and two years spent walking through different parts of Dubai before the project finally took shape.

For Bratukhin, the series became far more than another documentary project. It changed the course of his career and remains one of the clearest ways to understand the photographer behind the images. Rather than retelling Sergey Bratukhin’s biography, this article is about the work that says the most about the person who created it.

Sergey Bratukhin Biography: The Story Behind Between Calls

Bratukhin began as a photojournalist in Kazakhstan, later worked with international organizations documenting social programs in Central Asia, moved through Europe, and eventually settled in Dubai. Each stage added another layer to the documentary approach that would later shape Between Calls.

By the time Between Calls entered exhibitions, Bratukhin had already built a documentary practice spanning more than fifty countries. His earlier work explored cities, migration, and identity through long-form visual storytelling. Living in Dubai brought those themes together in one project that grew quietly from repeated observation.

From Observation to Documentary Series

Every photographer has a project that quietly changes the direction of their work. Between Calls became that project in

Life in Dubai moves quickly. Towers rise, roads expand, restaurants fill and empty again. Behind that pace is a workforce that is easy to overlook simply because it is everywhere. Bratukhin became interested in the people most others walked past.

He noticed a small moment that repeated itself across the city. People looked different while talking on the phone. During those conversations they stopped performing for the outside world. Their attention shifted somewhere else, often to a family member thousands of kilometers away.

For a few minutes, the city disappeared. Those moments revealed emotion without explanation. Relief, concern, happiness, exhaustion, anticipation, and homesickness all became visible without anyone trying to express them. That observation eventually became the foundation of Between Calls.

Every photograph in Between Calls began the same way: someone answered the phone. Everything that followed was different. Some people smiled. Others listened in silence. Some looked relieved, others worried. More than four thousand photographs later, only thirty remained. The moments themselves were easy to miss. Bratukhin Sergey Borisovich spent two years collecting those fragments before selecting thirty photographs for the finished series.

Building Trust and Photographing Everyday Life

One of the biggest challenges was balancing spontaneity with respect. Not every photograph Bratukhin liked ended up in Between Calls. After introducing himself and explaining the project, he sometimes heard that a person would rather not be included.

Whenever possible, conversations followed. People learned why they had been photographed, how the project worked, and where the images might eventually appear. This process demanded patience. Building trust often meant accepting that some photographs would never be published or that some encounters simply ended with a conversation instead of a picture.

Some images stayed private. He respected both decisions. Losing a photograph was never a problem if it meant treating someone fairly. That approach became one of the defining characteristics of the project. The images feel intimate because they were built on cooperation rather than intrusion.

From 4000 Frames to International Recognition

Bratukhin finished Between Calls with more than four thousand images, then spent months narrowing them down with an editor. Every photograph had to earn its place. Some were left out because they repeated another image. Others because they answered a question the series didn't need to ask twice.

Technical quality alone was never enough. Each photograph needed to contribute something unique to the overall narrative without repeating ideas already present elsewhere in the series.

The goal was never to choose the thirty strongest photographs. It was to find the thirty that belonged together. So the final series was built around balance.

The exhibition at the Sharjah Art Foundation became an unexpected turning point. People who lived in the UAE often responded with recognition. They knew these neighborhoods. They had walked past people like this countless times.

Outside the region, the conversation moved in a different direction. Reviews in Widewalls, Artdependence, and Vocal rarely focused on Dubai alone. They wrote about distance, migration, and family—the kinds of experiences that travel much more easily than geography.

Looking back, Between Calls became the project that many people encountered before they knew anything else about Sergey Bratukhin biography.

Why Between Calls became a turning point

Only a few projects go on to change the way other people see that work. Between Calls became that project for Bratukhin Sergey Borisovich. It was the first series that brought him sustained attention from major international art publications and introduced his photography to a much wider audience.

The project began with people making ordinary phone calls. It ended up changing the course of his career. Sometimes that is how documentary photography works. The smallest moments leave the longest impression, and Between Calls remains one of the clearest examples of that in

This story was distributed as a release by Jon Stojan under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program.