“It was a brief moment in time where it felt like something really unique was happening, but the places and people I photographed are gone forever,” he explains. Though he has no plans to return to, he’s now following the protests happening in the country after the recent rigged presidential election.
“Lithuania in the 1990s had a very ‘anything is possible’ vibe. There was dramatic economic and social change. People were able to travel more freely and see things beyond their small towns and villages. Rural kids in particular were hungry for change and looking for new experiences. They moved to bigger cities or found ways to go abroad. All this was happening before Facebook and other [forms of] social media.
“I like the photograph of the girl wearing a cropped sweater, boots and mini skirt standing against a column with a room full of men in jeans and black leather jackets in the background. I was using a large, studio-style flash, but it didn’t have a modelling light and I couldn’t see what was going on behind her. It wasn’t until later, when I got the film back, that I saw the guys in the background.
“Maybe the most important part of the word nightlife is ‘night’? Somehow the dark opens up possibilities for different experiences and interactions. Maybe it’s some ancient human thing and we function differently at night and our senses are more alert. In mybook I wrote about Lithuanian pagans who used to hold their midsummer solstice rituals at night. They would jump over fires while the young people would go into the forest to look for mythical magic fern blossoms.