I have a Masters in History. I think that's why I photograph the way I do.

I grew up in Bulgaria, at the end of one world and the beginning of another. I spent a decade in Prague directing how magazines looked — shaping the visual identity of editorial brands, learning that a frame is never just a frame. It is an argument. It is a choice about what deserves to survive.

I photograph entirely on analogue film. Not for the aesthetic — though the grain and the colour palette do things a sensor cannot. Because film is a physical record. Light lands on silver. Something real happened. That matters to me in a way I find difficult to explain to people who haven't lived through a history that tried to erase itself.

My work moves between portraiture and documentary, between San Francisco and Europe, between the intimate and the monumental. What connects it is a single question I have been asking since before I picked up a camera:

The best portrait is never taken. It is recognised

Her work has appeared in Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times, Rangefinder Magazine, Anti-Bride, and The Wed. She contributes to Shoot It With Film and has spoken on analogue film at Pola.Con Bay Area 2026.

Currently accepting gallery submissions and exhibition enquiries. Portrait commissions — San Francisco and worldwide
Wedding commissions → radostinaboseva.com