Your photographs are arresting and have a beautiful tinge of toska to them.
Your account of the MA course putting you off photography is both entirely recognizable and understandable and so disheartening, like confirmation of the world being in a reverse Big Bang. Makes me not regret getting an Art History degree in current times though.
Thank you for your very kind comment. Toska is such a good word, isn't it? Loneliness in the dark, tears at midday... hard to capture in English. I dumped my cameras and have only just picked them up again. It was hard to be sand-blasted with critical theory when all I wanted was to help to tell better stories, more truthful and beautiful ones. (Truth and beauty were seen as ridiculous, I think: one might actually consider them subversive nowadays.)
Especially beauty, that now seems to have set rules like the joke about the cookie cutter snowflakes made in Soviet kindergartens, “according to GOST standards”
By the way, in case of interest, I recommend the BBC Russian substack. It posts some of the highlights from their reporting (though usually about the war) and I tend to be the translator and editor. I wish I had more time to volunteer, and they could afford more staff, because they produce a lot of good work. A new piece will appear this weekend. I will draw your attention to it.
I try to dose my news because it’s hard to retain balanced and not self-destruct, especially regarding the war, but a lot of the other events and undercurrents too (the mood here in the US is heavy and vicious, maniac with the election and lack of tolerance or civil/constructive discussion of views and ideas).
Navalny’s death in February (although perhaps not surprising given everything that has happened), really crushed me, and a lot of Russian friends, like it was a close relative that died, or all hope.
All the news coming out of Russia has been bad to worst, to the latest tiniest absurdities like not teaching the theory of evolution.
With all of it I can’t distance myself and observe in healthy way, but get sucked into everything as an empath, while feeling absolutely impotent over all of it, which leads to not being able to function properly and have something good to give other people, for instance as a mother
Not taken by me, but by my grandfather, with a tripod and self-timer that clearly let him down at the last second. I'm kind of with the hipsters on this one. Bad photos can be more interesting. Aged relatives - a blurry memory. Standard Vanguard family automobile - sharp.
And the photo of the Vanguard with bokeh old folk is wonderful. You probably know, but bokeh is the Japanese for dementia. How we go out of focus with age...
I did not know that about bokeh. That is a very good fact.
Agree on toy cameras. I bought a relaunched Lomo in the early 2000s and went out shooting from the hip in Edinburgh, expecting saturated colours, light flares and instant hipsterdom. I just got a set of very bad - boring-bad - photos.
I had the original - I bought it at Yupiter, the equivalent of Dixons in Soviet Moscow. The shutter was entirely random, some settings were mechanically unachievable, and the light leaks were catastrophic. Perfect synecdoche for the USSR (and some of what is going on there today).
I guess you had a 136 cartridge - marginally better. And yes, I am also with the hipsters up to a point. Film emulsion does magic that no digital filter will do. But I have a problem with the marketing behind Lomo and the plastic 'toy' cameras, and the money they charge. I had an original Lomo that I bought in 1988. It was truly awful in every respect. In the mid-2000s, I threw it away. Apparently it's worth hundreds now. (Maybe that's where the anger lies...) But as in so much, caveat emptor.
Your photographs are arresting and have a beautiful tinge of toska to them.
Your account of the MA course putting you off photography is both entirely recognizable and understandable and so disheartening, like confirmation of the world being in a reverse Big Bang. Makes me not regret getting an Art History degree in current times though.
Thank you for your very kind comment. Toska is such a good word, isn't it? Loneliness in the dark, tears at midday... hard to capture in English. I dumped my cameras and have only just picked them up again. It was hard to be sand-blasted with critical theory when all I wanted was to help to tell better stories, more truthful and beautiful ones. (Truth and beauty were seen as ridiculous, I think: one might actually consider them subversive nowadays.)
Especially beauty, that now seems to have set rules like the joke about the cookie cutter snowflakes made in Soviet kindergartens, “according to GOST standards”
That made me laugh out loud!
By the way, in case of interest, I recommend the BBC Russian substack. It posts some of the highlights from their reporting (though usually about the war) and I tend to be the translator and editor. I wish I had more time to volunteer, and they could afford more staff, because they produce a lot of good work. A new piece will appear this weekend. I will draw your attention to it.
Vsego samogo samogo...
Thank you! I’ll be watching out for it.
Вы говорите по-русски?
I try to dose my news because it’s hard to retain balanced and not self-destruct, especially regarding the war, but a lot of the other events and undercurrents too (the mood here in the US is heavy and vicious, maniac with the election and lack of tolerance or civil/constructive discussion of views and ideas).
Navalny’s death in February (although perhaps not surprising given everything that has happened), really crushed me, and a lot of Russian friends, like it was a close relative that died, or all hope.
All the news coming out of Russia has been bad to worst, to the latest tiniest absurdities like not teaching the theory of evolution.
With all of it I can’t distance myself and observe in healthy way, but get sucked into everything as an empath, while feeling absolutely impotent over all of it, which leads to not being able to function properly and have something good to give other people, for instance as a mother
Great, great photos Chris. I hope the exhibition goes well.
My first camera, from around the same time, was a Kodak Instamatic which had a vastly superior - as in slightly bigger - film cartridge.
Your shot of your grandparents reminded me of this one of mine. https://www.threads.net/@lootplunder/post/C8T-828Il_J
Not taken by me, but by my grandfather, with a tripod and self-timer that clearly let him down at the last second. I'm kind of with the hipsters on this one. Bad photos can be more interesting. Aged relatives - a blurry memory. Standard Vanguard family automobile - sharp.
And the photo of the Vanguard with bokeh old folk is wonderful. You probably know, but bokeh is the Japanese for dementia. How we go out of focus with age...
I did not know that about bokeh. That is a very good fact.
Agree on toy cameras. I bought a relaunched Lomo in the early 2000s and went out shooting from the hip in Edinburgh, expecting saturated colours, light flares and instant hipsterdom. I just got a set of very bad - boring-bad - photos.
Still have it in a cupboard. Must check eBay.
I had the original - I bought it at Yupiter, the equivalent of Dixons in Soviet Moscow. The shutter was entirely random, some settings were mechanically unachievable, and the light leaks were catastrophic. Perfect synecdoche for the USSR (and some of what is going on there today).
I guess you had a 136 cartridge - marginally better. And yes, I am also with the hipsters up to a point. Film emulsion does magic that no digital filter will do. But I have a problem with the marketing behind Lomo and the plastic 'toy' cameras, and the money they charge. I had an original Lomo that I bought in 1988. It was truly awful in every respect. In the mid-2000s, I threw it away. Apparently it's worth hundreds now. (Maybe that's where the anger lies...) But as in so much, caveat emptor.