Piligrimages. Žemaičių Kalvarija.

A festive mood predominates in Romualdas Požerskis' photographic series Piligrimages, wherein he captures the rites performed by Catholic communities in Lithuanian villages. There are, however, also flashes of other kinds of emotion.
Yet, if we examine more photographs from the Piligrimages series, we will notice the presence of poetic and optimistic imagery alongside the more somber works. Požerskis always maintained a balance between lives marked by loss and the joy found in the preservation of simple human values.
What motivated Požerskis to pursue such themes? On the one hand, he may have been influenced by Aleksandras Macijauskas, a member of the older generation of photographers. Požerskis has referred to Macijauskas as a teacher who helped him develop a mature view of photography early in his creative career.
As another factor shaping his creative work, Požerskis mentions American photography of the 1960s and 1970s, with its characteristic somber tones that frequently had little regard for prevailing artistic canons, thereby often reinforcing the impression of authentic realism portrayed in the photographs. While a moderate aesthetic prevails in Požerskis' photography, from the perspective of themes and content many of the author's works have much in common with the pessimistic movement in American photography.