Crimean Winter by Daniil Korzhonov

Is it a nuclear holocaust? The after effects of a massive asteroid striking earth? Nah. Just Eastern Europe in the winter. Crimea in wintertime with dramatic light looks almost otherworldly.

The photos are the work of Russia-based Daniil Korzhonov, who likes to tramp around the snow-flecked mountains and barren forests of the Ukrainian republic of Crimea, his Nikon D80 in hand. The soft-focus effect here, which makes some of the pictures look fake (like they were swiped from the set of yet another overproduced End Times blockbuster) is largely natural, Korzhonov tells us–just a product of bizarre weather.

“Mainly, my photos are taken in deep fog in the morning,” he writes in an email. “Crimea is a small peninsula at the Black Sea. So clouds cover the mountains in the morning. And my mission is to harvest the rare moments of sun coming through the cold winter clouds.” He does use some Photoshop (“a little bit of toning and color correction”), he says, but nothing unusual: “The heart [of the photographs] is the light in the scene.”

[Images courtesy of Daniil Korzhonov; h/t to Designboom]