The great beauty: the picture becomes personal for photographer Masha Demianova

When Moscow photographer Masha Demianova moved to New York for a few months last winter she was overcome by a sense of loneliness. Then one day, she met Alyosha Kovalyova. Demianova becomes friends with her subjects, but when she was hired to take test photos of Kovalyova for a modelling agency it was the beginning of real bond. “We started hanging out every day,” says Demianova. “When we had no money we would scrape together a few dollars and make dinner with the cheapest possible ingredients.” As the two emigrants became more and more reliant on each other, Demianova began putting together a portrait of her friend. "This is very interesting experience for me as a photographer," she says. "Because the person you shoot is transforming from a stranger and a subject to a friend, and the pictures become personal".