Sasha Gusov left Russia at the beginning of the 1990s, moving to London with no money to his name and no papers that would allow him to work; to begin with all he could was wait tables illegally. However his life changed in 1992 when the world-famous Bolshoi Ballet came to town and Gusov was able to sneak into the backstage of the Royal Albert Hall, where he introduced himself to the choreographer Yury Grigorovich, explained that he was a Russian photographer (which wasn’t strictly true, he was very much an amateur) and asked for permission to shoot the performance. The answer was yes. His resulting pictures were published in the prestigious British Journal of Photography and the rest, as they say, is history. Sasha Gusov has continued to shoot the Bolshoi every time they come to London and now 50 of his resplendent pictures, spanning the years from 1992 to 2016, have gone on display in their home city of Moscow.

More information at: The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography