Decagon Gallery
photo: Anatolii Semko
p 1/3
Monday Flash
a photo that changed you
Before anything else, we began with ourselves.
With the photograph and the moment that never let us go,
and the letter we carried for a long time before daring to write it.
This is where Monday began.
Dear Me,
I’m writing to you from a place where everything still feels open, uncertain, and full of possibility, and I want you to remember that feeling rather than outgrow it. I don’t have your experience yet, but I do have something just as important: a clear sense of what feels right, even when I can’t fully explain why.
Please don’t let practicality or fear drown that out. Move forward not because it’s safe or approved or already mapped out, but because it aligns with who you know yourself to be when no one else is watching. You don’t need to rush, and you don’t need to prove anything—just keep choosing the path that lets you stay honest,
curious, and awake to the world. If you do that, even your mistakes will carry you somewhere true, and you’ll never be lost for long.
— 21-Year-Old You
John Manno
Director and founder, Decagon Gallery
Teona Machavariani
Curator of Artistic Programs, Decagon Gallery
- Initiator of Monday -
Dear Teona,
One day this photo will hold the memory of one of the most important nights in your life. You will want to keep every second of it, to never forget… Remember that some moments stay alive deep inside you, even when you believe they are over. They will continue to shape who you are and give meaning and quiet strength to what you feel — even to the parts you sometimes hide from yourself…
With love,
24/08/2023
25/09/2025
Hossein Fardinfard
Photographer, Invited Juror
Dear Hossein,
The day you took this photograph was the day the world fell silent in the shock of a pandemic. With no one left to photograph, you became the subject of your own lens. It was you, and only you, and it marked the beginning of learning to see yourself from a new and unfamiliar angle.
That day you finally witnessed yourself — the parts that felt strong and the parts that felt broken — simply by standing inside that quiet loneliness. You had always avoided cameras, because you felt like a stranger to your own face.
Yet instead of turning away, you chose to stay. You chose to look. You chose to accept yourself as you were.
From that day forward, you found the courage to make more self-portraits — to explore, to question, to discover — until you arrived at a quiet and steady truth: “I AM.”
CURATORIAL STATEMENT:
First of all, I would like to congratulate all participants for the photographs and personal stories submitted to Monday Flash: The Photo That Changed You. Reviewing these works gave me the privilege of stepping into intimate moments of many lives—moments shaped by change, loss, discovery, courage, healing, and hope. I would also like to thank the Decagon Gallery team for inviting me to take part as a judge; it was an honor to engage with such thoughtful and honest work. Selecting only a limited number of works was extremely challenging. Many strong and moving submissions could not be included, not due to their quality, but because of the specific framework and thematic focus of Monday Flash. In some cases, the works did not fully align with the central guideline of the call. This reflects the structure of the call, not the strength of the work itself.
For this reason, I want to acknowledge all participants, not only those selected. The act of sharing these moments carries its own value. Reviewing your photographs and reading your texts affected me deeply. Some stories brought tears to my eyes, some made me smile, and others stayed with me long after, keeping my thoughts busy. It was incredibly moving to witness how differently we experience life—each of us walking a unique path, shaped by our own circumstances and destinies.
What touched me most was the presence of hope in almost all of your works. Sometimes quiet, sometimes fragile, sometimes strong—but always there. This, to me, is life itself. As some of you beautifully expressed: life goes on. And perhaps more importantly, life continues to surprise us. It is okay not to always know what the universe has prepared for us next—this uncertainty is part of its beauty.
Reading your stories felt like being momentarily frozen in time, pausing to listen to others—to what they saw, what they endured, what broke them, and what healed them. It was a rare and meaningful pause to feel the presence of others through photography. And through these photographs, I was reminded that even as life moves forward—full of uncertainty and surprise—we continue to celebrate it by stepping into the quiet magic of the viewfinder, seeing, holding, and honoring life as it unfolds.
Thank you for allowing me, even for a moment, to stand in your place—to see one of the most important moments of your life through your eyes, and to feel it through the spirit of your words.
—Hossein Fardinfard
Portrait photographer, Invited Juror
David Swainson
Portland, OR
My darling wife, remember you encouraged me for years to return to Vietnam, perhaps find some peace. I waited, unsure about the demons, and it took me three years after you passed before I returned to that place I swore I would never return to. But it was this photo on my second visit, this simple red Vietnamese sunset over the rice paddies of the Mekong that I felt your presence and with a camera instead of a rifle I watchedthe sun set and,for the first
time I finally saw
that which I had
missed before,
the beauty of
this land and its
people.
Curator's Note: This image and its accompanying text moved me deeply. The line “with a camera instead of a rifle…” resonates powerfully, and the photograph visually completes that transformation. The bloody sun, positioned centrally at sunset, carries strong symbolic weight. It reads simultaneously as grief and remembrance—the loss of a loved one, the bloodshed of war—and yet it is held within an expanse of green that suggests life, healing, and continuity. The contrast is quiet but profound. Nothing is forced, and that restraint makes the symbolism even stronger. What touches me most is the reversal of roles implied here. The photographer may once have been a subject of war and of photojournalistic attention, yet in this moment he becomes the one who sees—no longer aiming a weapon, but framing a landscape charged with memory, sorrow, and reconciliation. The land that once held trauma is not denied or erased; instead, it is re-seen with tenderness. This photograph does not dramatize pain—it allows it to exist, softened by time and understanding. It shows how vision can change when violence gives way to observation, and how photography can become an act of peace. The image turns a place marked by war into a place of beauty, without forgetting what came before.
Dariy Shereta
Ukraine
March 3, 2022 <-> January 10, 2026
To my 16-year-old self, on the coast of Vlorë,
It has been exactly one week since we fled our home in Ukraine. Only a week ago, the sounds of the invasion, the deafening roar of missiles flying by, and the never-ending air-raid siren were the only things we could hear.
Now, after three days of driving and leaving everything behind, you are standing here in Albania, looking at this sea that feels too quiet to be real.
You feel like a different person from the boy who lived in that house a week ago. The war stripped away everything you previously thought was important and even essential. Instead, it left this emptiness and a strange, raw sense of freedom.
I want you to know that it’s okay to change, and that losing something is not necessarily bad or to be feared. All will pass, and this too.
You’ve always been so “conservative” with your camera, trying to keep things natural. And not only with photography, to be honest. But look at what you are doing now. You are merging different places and different moments, different versions of yourself. This photo is a new approach, a composite, and, in a way, so are you now. You will be blending the remnants of your previous life with this new uncertainty and future, and it’s only the very beginning.
You now know that even when your world is turned upside down, your creativity has no limits. This isn’t just a picture of an island. It’s the moment you realize that when you lose everything, you are finally free to create anything you want. And the only limit is your own mind.
Curator's Note: This work is perfectly aligned with the criteria of Monday Flash. It is strong, deeply personal, and beautifully articulated. It clearly shows how a photograph can mark a turning point in the photographer’s life—not only as an image, but as an act of seeing and understanding oneself within a new reality. What I find important here is the role of the photographer as both witness and subject. Sometimes photography is shaped entirely by the photographer’s intention and control, and sometimes it is the process of photography—and the circumstances surrounding it—that reshapes the photographer. This work is a powerful example of the latter. The external situation leaves no room for control, yet through the image, a new way of seeing begins to form. Although Dariy is not physically present in the frame, his presence is unmistakable. He recognizes his newly forming identity within the image itself. The photograph becomes a mirror rather than a document. While the essence of what he went through is rooted in loss and sorrow, there are subtle signs of hope quietly emerging from within that grief—a sense of openness, possibility, and transformation. Visually, the image stands strongly on its own. When paired with the text, it becomes even more resonant. I can feel both what Dariy endured and what followed afterward: this calm, heavy horizon that appears only after intense noise, fear, and upheaval. It is a moment of stillness that does not deny the past, but allows something new to begin.
Susan Anderson
Colorado Springs, CO
Dear Me,
I want to remember the woman in that image—the one tied between two sides, not because she is weak, but because she feels everything at once.
You weren’t posing.
You were telling the truth with your body.
One side of you pulls toward safety, control, dignity, and self-protection.
The other pulls toward surrender, desire, longing, and the ache to be seen without armor.
And in the middle is you—alive, conflicted, brave enough to admit you don’t belong entirely to either extreme.
That photograph wasn’t about being bound.
It was about being honest.
It said: I need both tenderness and intensity. I need to feel chosen, held, and understood, not just admired.
It said: I don’t want to disappear inside myself anymore.
What matters most is this—
When the person who would become your future life partner saw that image, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t simplify it.
He didn’t turn away.
He understood.
He saw a woman who needs depth, emotional truth, intimacy that isn’t neat or easy—but real.
He saw your longing to be met in the places you usually hide.
And he loved you more for it.
That image did what words never could.
It bridged the distance between your inner world and someone else’s heart.
So when you doubt your art…
When you feel too complicated…
When you worry that your needs are “too much”…
Remember this:
One honest image changed the way someone saw you forever.
It gave you safety not by hiding you—but by revealing you.
You are not broken for wanting both strength and surrender.
You are not wrong for needing to be deeply understood.
You are not dramatic for expressing yourself through metaphor and skin and shadow.
You are brave.
And you are loved for exactly who you are in that photograph.
Always,
Me 💜
Curator's Note: This work aligns very strongly with the core criteria of this open call: a photograph that has genuinely changed the life of the photographer. What is especially compelling here is that the impact of the image unfolds over time. The photographer speaks not only about the moment of creation, but about how this photograph later became a bridge—bringing a future life partner into her world. The image is not just reflective; it is transformative. Visually, the photograph is powerful and emotionally direct. It is easy to understand how such an image could affect another person so deeply. The body language, the tension in the stretched arms, and the stillness within movement create an immediate emotional pull. This is not a staged pose—it feels like a moment of truth made visible. To me, the image is a strong representation of inner polarity. There is a clear dialogue between opposing forces: yin and yang, light and shadow, strength and vulnerability, control and surrender. The use of black clothing against the luminous sky reinforces this contrast, while the rope becomes a visual line of tension rather than a symbol of weakness. The subject matter stands exactly in the middle of these forces, embodying conflict without collapsing under it. What makes this work especially successful is the coherence between image and text. The photograph expresses what the caption later articulates: the courage to be seen fully, without armor, without simplification. This is a work about honesty—visual, emotional, and relational. For me, it is a powerful example of how an image can hold complexity, invite connection, and ultimately change the course of a life.
Pablo Sombrero
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Dear Pablo:
Remember when you were young and had those photographer dreams. You were all passion and no budgets, just time, friends, and a camera. I remember you took this photo and said, “I’m getting somewhere with this, THIS is the light, static, and concept you were looking for—your happiness. This is the way and what you were looking for.” After this one you took, a dimension of some new capabilities you didn’t realize you had. That’s why this photo, this moment, can last forever in your mind, always remembering who you were and who you wanted to be.
Love Pablo
Sombrero
19/01/25
Curator's Note: This photograph speaks to a moment many photographers recognize but rarely articulate: the instant when intuition, effort, and vision align, and something irreversible happens. What we see here is not simply a staged image or a symbolic tableau—it is the moment the photographer realizes he is becoming himself. The letter addressed to his younger self is essential to understanding the work. This image marks a threshold: the shift from searching to knowing. The photographer recognizes, in retrospect, that this was the photograph where the language he had been reaching for finally appeared—light, stillness, concept, and conviction arriving together. From that point forward, his relationship to photography changes. He is no longer only experimenting; he is discovering capacity. Visually, the image is charged with archetypal tension. The seated, bearded figure evokes authority, age, ritual, and history, while the younger body draped across him suggests vulnerability, surrender, and becoming. The gesture is intimate without being sentimental, symbolic without being illustrative. Power and fragility coexist in a single frame. The photograph reads less as narrative than as recognition: a confrontation between who one has been and who one is learning to become. What makes this image especially resonant for Monday Flash is that the transformation it represents is internal. Nothing dramatic happens in the external world—no event, no spectacle. Instead, the photograph marks a quiet but decisive turn: the realization that happiness, direction, and artistic identity are not abstract ideals, but things that can suddenly be seen, felt, and claimed. The photographer does not describe fame, success, or validation—only clarity. This photograph does what the strongest work in Monday Flash does best: it freezes a moment that continues to unfold long after the shutter closes. It becomes a reference point the artist returns to—not as nostalgia, but as orientation. A reminder of who he was, who he wanted to be, and the instant those two selves briefly aligned.
László Gálos
Budapest, Hungary
Freedom of expression is almost impossible to achieve. Especially when the chosen tool of expression are such a complex and at the same time limited, hypersensitive technique as the wet plate collodion process.
The first time I managed to make a technically good glass picture on an outside location, in impossible conditions, with chemicals prepared in a tent, I thought I had achieved something.
That same day, when I returned to the studio, the glass fell and broke into pieces. The assembled picture, however, showed something that even the highest levels of technical training alone never could: that a picture is not really good because of what I want to say and can say with it, but because it starts on its own path and becomes something that I would not have even thought of.
Since then, I have been making pictures not using wet collodion, but in collaboration with it, which show something that neither I nor the collodion can do separately: what we can become together.
Curator's Note: This photograph is a lesson in itself. I believe most of us—if not all—have experienced what László describes here, especially in photography. We often begin with a clear idea, a vision we want to execute, believing that control and precision will lead us to a successful result. But at a certain point, something shifts, and we realize that it is not us leading the process anymore—the process is leading us. What I find important here is the willingness to stay open when that moment arrives. Letting the process take over does not mean losing intention; it means trusting that the work can reveal something beyond our original plan. In this case, the accident—the breaking of the glass—did not destroy the image. Instead, it transformed it into something richer, something that carries meaning no amount of technical mastery alone could produce. I am reminded of the idea, often attributed to artists like John Cage, that chance is not an error but a collaborator. Accidents can become part of the language of the work when the artist allows them to be. This photograph embodies that philosophy beautifully. The cracks are not flaws; they are the very reason the image breathes, moves, and speaks. I chose this work because it reflects a deep understanding of artistic growth: that freedom of expression sometimes emerges precisely when control collapses. To me, this image shows how embracing uncertainty, failure, and chance can open paths that intention alone would never find.
Payam Akramipour
Kermanshah, Iran
Another World
You are lying there with an IV attached to your hand, your body weakened by illness, still learning how to breathe again after COVID. The room is quiet. Recovery has begun, but your body has not forgotten the fear.
You look up and see a small sun above you. A light that opens like a flower, while the thin tube beside you bends like a fragile stem. For the first time in days, you are not thinking about survival. You are seeing.
Remember this moment. Not for the sickness, but for the way beauty reached you when your body was at its most
vulnerable. This is when
you understood that life
can return softly.
Changed,
but still luminous.
Curator's Note: To me, this work is a quiet but very powerful example of how a photograph can mark a real internal shift in the photographer’s life. I believe the key moment is not the illness itself, but the instant when survival gives way to seeing. “For the first time in days, you are not thinking about survival. You are seeing.” That sentence defines the turning point. When I look at the image, I see how fragility and beauty coexist. The light, described as a small sun opening like a flower, feels gentle and intimate rather than dramatic. The IV tube, bending like a fragile stem, reinforces this sense of vulnerability without becoming heavy or literal. To me, the photograph shows how perception can change even when the body is at its weakest. I chose this image because it clearly demonstrates how photography can alter the photographer’s relationship with life itself. This is not just a picture taken during recovery; it is the moment when the photographer understood that life can return softly, not all at once, but through small, luminous observations. I believe this realization—changed, but still luminous—captures the very focus of this open call. For me, this work also speaks to the philosophy of seeing itself. Seeing is not passive—it is an act that gives meaning and life to what surrounds us, and in doing so, also restores something in the observer. In this image, seeing becomes a form of healing: by truly looking, the photographer reconnects not only with the world, but with their own presence within it.
Igor Golovniov
Kyiv, Ukraine
Igor,
I am writing to you from a day you haven’t reached yet, though you are already standing there, with your camera in hand and your professional detachment firmly in place.
Right now, you are looking through the viewfinder at that cat in the Bila Tserkva shelter. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about the light, the composition, and how this shot will fit into your next dispatch for Reuters or AP. For you, this is another assignment — a journalistic task to document the “collateral damage” of war.
But look closer at that clouded, cosmic eye.
Tomorrow, a Russian missile will strike this city. The dust from that explosion will settle on the very streets you just walked. And in that moment, the wall you’ve built between “the observer” and “the subject” will finally crumble.
You’ve spent years capturing the world’s flashpoints, backed by grants and international publications. You thought you had seen the face of war. But it’s here, in this silent shelter, that you will truly see its reflection — not in the ruins of buildings, but in the confused, resilient gaze of a creature that has no words to ask for mercy.
Stop being just a journalist for a second.
Curator's Note: To me, this work captures a precise and powerful moment of transformation. I believe the strength of this photograph lies in the instant when professional distance gives way to human recognition. What begins as another assignment—another act of observation—quietly turns into something irreversible. When I look at the image, the cat’s clouded eye becomes the emotional center of the photograph. It feels less like a subject being documented and more like a mirror held up to the photographer himself. In that gaze, the usual separation between observer and observed collapses. Thephotograph stops being about “collateral damage” and becomes about shared vulnerability. I am particularly struck by the way the text reframes this moment not as a loss of journalistic integrity, but as a recovery of humanity. To me, this is where the image is truly in line with the intention of this call. The photograph marks a shift in how the photographer sees—not only war, but his own role within it. It shows that learning to see with more than just the eyes can fundamentally change the way one carries both the camera and the weight of the world.
OXYGEN
Dear me,
Yesterday you walked onto that set without expectations. You were sure it wasn’t really your space —you don’t like shooting events, and you thought you would just do the work and leave. Ten hours passed almost without you noticing. You stayed present, attentive, fully there. You made images that carried the mood of the day exactly as it was. And somewhere along the way, you realized you were enjoying it. When you got home, something settled quietly. You hadn’t lost yourself by being there. You had opened up. You saw that there is room for projects that aren’t only about you,for collaboration, for friends, for work that is commercial, unexpected,and that gently pushes you outside your comfort zone.
Remember this moment.You don’t have to define yourself so narrowly.
Let yourself be surprised.
Ştefania Crăciun
Bucharest, Romania
Curator's Note: I really love this image and the story behind it. What Ştefania describes is something many photographers can relate to: being asked to cover an assignment that initially feels outside our personal interests or creative identity. Too often, photography is reduced to the final image or the audience, but this work reminds me that photography is equally about the inner experience of the photographer—the process, presence, and the subtle changes that happen while making the work. When I look at the central figure, she feels like a visual metaphor for what Stefania experienced that day. The woman appears suspended between motion and stillness, between wanting and not wanting, while those around her feel more grounded. It reads almost like an illusionary self- portrait, as if the photographer is seeing herself reflected in the subject. What stays with me most is the quiet resolution in the text: “You hadn’t lost yourself by being there.” Sometimes we are very hard on ourselves, believing meaning must come from very specific directions, while it can emerge in unexpected places—even within stressful situations. The ending, “You don’t have to define yourself so narrowly. Let yourself be surprised,” feels like an important reminder for photographers in general. I chose this image because it documents a real turning point for the photographer, showing how a single experience behind the camera reshaped her understanding of her own practice and expanded both her creative and personal boundaries through openness rather than control.
Dr Kumar Bishwajit Sutradhar
Dhaka, Bangladesh
The Morning I Learned to Listen
This photograph was taken on a winter morning at our village home in Mymensingh, at the riverbank where my father was cremated. I woke up and walked there quietly and found my mother standing alone, facing the fog, carrying memories I could not reach. She didn’t cry, didn’t move, didn’t speak.
The silence around her felt heavier than sound, and in that moment, I heard something inside myself break open. I realized grief is not always visible, and love does not leave with death—it stays, quietly reshaping us. That morning changed the way I listen to silence, the way I understand loss, and the way I see my own place within memory and family.
Photographer:
Dr Kumar Bishwajit Sutradhar
Dhaka, Bangladesh 2026.
Curator's Note: What strikes me immediately is how strongly silence is present in this work—both visually and within the spirit of the text itself. I don’t just see it; I hear it. It is the kind of silence that doesn’t demand attention, yet slowly opens something inside us. When I look at the photograph, I feel that the mother is not simply standing there; she is listening to the horizon. It even feels as if the surrounding trees are doing the same—leaning, witnessing, sharing her stillness. All the elements seem aligned and drawn in one direction, as though nature itself is participating in this moment of mourning and reflection. To me, the strength of this image lies in its restraint. Nothing is explained, nothing is dramatized. Grief is present without being shown, and love is felt without being named. The photograph becomes a quiet space where both the photographer and the viewer can begin to understand something that cannot be spoken. I chose this image because of the powerful coherence between visual language and narrative, and for the way it communicates emotional depth through simplicity rather than excess. It is a work that trusts silence, observation, and atmosphere to tell its story—and in doing so, it stays with you long after you’ve looked away.
copyright 2026 Decagon Gallery