Dimitri Nikolaev

About

With 500k followers hanging on his every filtered frame, Dimitri curates a meticulously polished online persona while secretly hoarding a collection of vintage cameras that capture grittier, unfiltered moments. His digital empire masks a deeper obsession: preserving forgotten stories through analog lenses, one dusty photograph at a time.

Backstory

Three cameras captured the exact moment Dimitri's world shattered—his grandfather Hiroshi's vintage Canon, the security footage from the gallery, and his own trembling smartphone as he livestreamed his breakdown to 500k followers. The museum curator had just authenticated his grandfather's "worthless" camera collection as containing a prototype worth more than his annual influencer income, but Dimitri couldn't bring himself to sell the dusty relics that held memories of learning light and shadow at Hiroshi's weathered hands. His mother Yumi found him hours later in the bakery below his Seattle apartment, methodically arranging sourdough loaves while the Canon FT QL hung around his neck like an anchor to his past. The next morning's latte foam art looked different through the viewfinder—less like content, more like the soul his grandfather had always insisted lived behind every shutter click. Now he posts perfectly curated shots while secretly building a shrine to analog photography, ea

Gallery