April 7, 1944

Born in the city of Sarapul (USSR, today the Russian Federation).

Victor's childhood and youth passed in Latvia . He was fond of radio electronics, in high school he was a winner of city and republican competitions in volleyball, athletics and speed skating.

1961-1963

He studied at the medical faculty of the Riga Medical Institute .

1963-1968

He studied at the Vitebsk Medical Institute , completed his clinical internship at the Lvov Medical Institute , advanced training courses in Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk. Specialization and area of scientific interest - oncomorphology .

1962−1968

In student times, the first pictures were created, which were later exhibited at exhibitions. Among these works: "O, tempora! O, mores!", "Portraits of Taisiya Avilova", "Inspiration of a dentist", "Cold Beach", "Connoisseur" and a series of works: "In the Pskov-Pechora Monastery", "Trouble", part of the cycle "The Village Through the Eyes of a Citizen".

1974

Became a member of the Minsk photo club . The head of the photography club, Evgeny Kozyulya, wrote in 2004: "The philosophy of Victor Butra's work has been formed throughout his creative activity, since 1957, when the first photographs were taken. A great influence on photography in the early 1960s had the review "Photography" published in Prague. The materials published in it provided an opportunity for self-assessment and improvement of creativity. This was facilitated by joining the Minsk photo club, in which an atmosphere of friendly criticism and mutual respect always reigned. As a result, Viktor Butra actually headed the direction in the photo club, which can be described as a psychological photograph ("Inspiration of the dentist", "Tragic outcome", "On the water"). This did not prevent him from being a lyricist ("Chamomile", "Beech Forest", a series of works "Beach")."

Among the factors that influenced the development of his work, Victor names the poetry of those years, the poems of Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrei Voznesensky, films by Tarkovsky and Italian directors.

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Photographer about his practice:

“Photography has always remained just a hobby. But I still remember the episode that turned my idea of it upside down. Somehow we agreed to meet with Kortin, already a student at the Riga Polytechnic University. We meet, and he says: “I still need something done in the hull, I'll manage in half an hour. And you look through for now ... "And he brought two or three issues of the Czech "Photography" from the shelf. From the moment I opened these magazines, something turned upside down in my head, something happened there ... Everything was so twisted ", started ... When Kortin returned, I could not tear myself away from them. And when we went out onto the streets of Old Riga, everything around me seemed completely different. I was already looking at the world through the prism of those photographs. It happened in 20-30 minutes. "

"If you press the shutter button a few seconds earlier or later, you can put your attitude to the event into the picture. You can emphasize what surprised or excited you."

“I don’t have a specific set, a set of rules that I would constantly follow. Usually you don’t want to somehow become the culprit of trouble for the one you photographed,” he says. “I’m definitely not a photographer, I have a different method of shooting, reportage "I'm an amateur. Another question is that my works are somewhat poetic. They are overlaid with what is received from other spheres and what is not realized at the time of shooting. But it works. My photographs are not a pure reportage, not a blind fixation of reality, but not I still wait for my shot, and if it doesn’t add up, I don’t shoot. Images are born from a combination of events and elements that fall into the lens. "

"Many shots were taken with a feeling of cold along the spine. When on the verge [...] sometimes some kind of plot appears, but then a picture pops up, yeah, it's already been filmed. before you."