like Penny pointed, in Russia he regularly got publications, but as i said previously, they are for me rather disapointing, very (too) classicle.
I must say i have mixed feeling about that generation of young photographer focusing all their work on pose/expression and using mainly natural lighting, i dont think just about Repin, but Eric Guillemain gives me exactly the same feeling.
When u consider all elements included in a high level editorial; make up, hair, stylism, story...their very good natural pictures maybe dont make confident any fashion editor to order them an editorial with all these elements to manage it includes.
I think that's one of the reason their progress is a bit slow, it is because their style is really great to look at, but is still very far from what magazines needs.
i've been thinking about fashion photography in emerging fashion scenes (Russia, China, Brazil etc) so i thought i may put my two cents here.
there two main problems here. first one is the absence of infrastructure per se (meaning industry at all). local professionals are the ones to be pioneers of fashion industry/publishing/photgraphy. they had merely no chance to get a proper education or expirience meaning there is no culture of doing fashion in these countries. there's no tradition, no heritage, no aesthetic (as say, in New York, London or Paris). these people work in that unpredictable 'go and try' mood, where result of their work is unpredictable, intuitive - it's nothing compared to productions like major studios and photographers do. that said, fashion photographers are more of creators left on their own within their quite poor resources and their own imagination and understanding what's right. there is very little methodical approach to their work, things are badly planned (if are planned at all), and therefore they are executed not as good as key players' work. what we experience in post-Soviet countries, as well as in BRIC and other emerging markets is that these professionals are the first wave of creatives to exist (in scale of international scene). they don't have the habit, the understanding what it takes to produce a
vogue image. that is why oh-so-often these works even though is quite impressive itself has very little to do with the zeitgeist and to add to the general aesthetical/cultural dialogue taking place in the industry. to put it short, it lacks context, something fashion imagery has to deal with.
the second reason is kind of derivative. it's the absense of production base. technically it's quite DIY. if you look at Maxim Repin's pictures you will definitely notice they lack this sort of post-production that the Box can provide. very often these are photographers who retouch their pictures themselves and it's not a common practice to run print tests and all that stuff required to produce a high quality image.
so i think the main problem with it is the inability (technical as well as aesthetical) to deliver an equivalent product. of course, there are people who push the envelope and do their own thing, but this lack of experience and understanding of how the whole machine works leads to nothing but losses in quality.
maybe that sounds a bit harsh and off-topic as well, but this is my personal observation which, i think, brings some light into the question of why people do what they do.