Someone wrote in the comments: “I get the impression that Dmitry is sitting near the same five-storey apartment block [pyatietazhka] and photographing life in the vicinity.” Existentially, that’s how it is, and so when I geotag a post I feel I’m doing something that is somewhat meaningless, as if a Khrushchev-era apartment block [khrushchevka] in Ladoga were fundamentally different in some way from a Khrushchev-era apartment block in Petrozavodsk.
Nevertheless, the Soviet neighborhoods with their endless labyrinths of prefab blocks of flats and bricks are the most interesting and beautiful things in a city. [On the contrary,] I enjoy going to museums and fortresses about as much as I enjoy going to a municipal outpatient clinic.
I would like to paraphrase a quote by an artist,* although he is probably the last artist whose quotes I would like to paraphrase—Warhol: “Five-storey apartment blocks are the most beautiful things in Russia. Five-storey apartment blocks are the most beautiful things in Belarus. Five-storey apartment blocks are the most beautiful things in Kazakhstan. There is nothing beautiful in Beijing and New York.”
* [“The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald’s. The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald’s. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald’s. Peking and Moscow don’t have anything beautiful yet.”]
Source: Dmitry Markov (Facebook) is at Staraya Ladoga (Leningrad Region, Russia), 31 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader
Friends, I don’t answer questions about shooting and processing, not because I keep this knowledge secret, but because the very wording of the question don’t entail a substantive answer. How do I get people’s consent? In different ways. How do I process shots? Manually.
Many people think there is some kind of universal life hack—a script for talking to people, a filter for processing photos, etc.—that will solve the problem. It is excusable for youngsters who grew up on TikTok and other shit to think this way, but we adults should realize that things are more complicated. And supposing that quality is determined by equipment is like believing that a properly selected frying pan is the key to being awarded Michelin stars.
I used to think that this desire for quick results was a peculiarity of young people, but my psychotherapist friends, for example, face the same situation, although their clients are no longer teenagers. Apparently, it is human nature to cut corners and look for a panacea.
You can get experience in communicating with people only by doing it. And in this case it is also difficult to give advice because everyone has their own patterns of behavior—at first. Some [photographers] get the consent [of the people they’re shooting], some shoot brazenly, some shoot secretly, etc. Situations are different too: in some places it’s enough to shoot once, on the fly, while in others you have to get to know your subjects. Being able to predict which strategy will be most effective in which case and will give the best result is a tour de force, I think. And this comes with experience.
P.S. By the way, shooting secretly is no solution at all—any street photographer will tell you that when shooting covertly, the photographer has such an anxious and telltale kisser that it would be better if he shot openly.
Source: Dmitry Markov (Facebook) is at Bogoyavlenie (Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia), 25 May 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader
