MOLDOVA. Transdniester. 2004: The population of Transdniester is mainly ethnic Russians, and the main religion is Russian Orthodox Christianity. Here a priest gives his blessings before a christening in the icy waters of January.

The other morning as I was rushing into work I spotted some beautifully grainy color photographs in the gallery in The Art Institute of Boston. I quickly looked around as the show had not been fully set up yet filled with hope that there is photography out there that gets me excited still.

Jonas Bendiksen is a magnum photographer who, at the age of twenty, has been actively photographing the outskirts of what was the U.S.S.R. Using a 35mm camera and color film, he has captured some amazingly beautiful moments in this terrible run down area. The photographs range from a failed satellite fire to cows eating potentially radioactive grass on a hillside. All of the photographs are strongly rooted in color and in in the content. Each picture comes with it’s own sentence or so as well as a title to explain what is going on in each photograph.

After wondering around now that it is up and the opening has gone by, I love and am deeply grateful that my school put on this amazing show that has made me excited once again about photography. These prints are digital C-prints and are incredible. The sense of color and grain in these photographs gives them a real sense of atmosphere and breaks the mold of the no grain world the art world seems to live in today.

If you are in Boston I highly recommend going to see this show.