Sakhalin
Photographed predominantly in the broken, rusted, skeletons of communities around Sakhalin Island, Russia, these images explore the enigmatic spirit of a place and its people, long scarred from the Soviet era and left behind in modern times.
Photographs: Michael Christopher Brown
Website: www.mcbphotos.com
Nice. Very nice.
michael
i could certainly feel the desolation and chill in the air throughout the series..
the muskwa-kechika series on your site is beautiful and illustrates your consistent vision very well..
good one.. best for the future
david
BEAUTIFUL photography…
again
and again…
dreamy..
love the soft light..
your use of colors
and the layers in your photos..
the one image that sort of jumps out to me, that seems a little out of place, is #10..
I dunno, for me, it has a different vibe or something…
strong body of work..
**
Great series, Michael. Stunning images.
Would love to read captions or a bit more information on some of the photographs.
Thanks.
This is an excellent essay. The isolation, desolation and sense of time stretching without change into an uncertain future. Good job! I want to see more.
Not only has Michael created a mood of isolation, bleakness and hopelessness, but he also manages to make me care about these people. Even the animals look depressed. Speaking of which, image #6 blows me away. I have to admit to watching this slideshow with audible sighs and “wow’s” coming unbidden. But it ended too soon. I wanted more. So I went to Michael’s web site to see an expanded version. It is well worth the visit.
In my humble opinion, Michael Christopher Brown is an emerging photographer who already shines with his own unique radiance. Thank you, David, for featuring him here. Again you have showed your discerning eye. And Michael, I am in awe of your artistic eye, compassionate heart and remarkable talent. Keep doin’ it, my friend. You are definitely one to watch.
Patricia
Can’t stand it..
“Again you have SHOWN your discerning eye.”
Patricia
Absolutely beautiful work. You have a wonderful way of seeing. Divers, humorous and very sensitive. My favorites of this essay are the more latent and melodic images like #1,7 and 12. They are stunning.
Checked out your website and you have some really lovely work.
Aislinn
Magnificent essay filled with gorgeous and heart-breaking photographs…..
Sakhalin Island is indeed a desolate but incredibly rich island, filled with historical calamity and difficult, not the least of which has to do with it’s isolation and climate. I first read about Sakhalin when reading Ryszard Kapuscinski’s magisterial Imperium and later again in Tiziano Terzani Goodnight Mister Lenin. Chekhov also wrote a book about his travels to Sakhalin, an island that has often been used as a punishment gulag, during the Tsars’ time and later during the Soviet time.
What I love about this series is that the history of the island and the difficult that the people experience, (after the collapse of the soviet union, the ‘russians’ who populated the island (forced or not) have been basically ‘forgotten’)….and the photographs and the story itself contain all of that despondency and feverish difficulty…
a powerful, beautifully photographed and deeply sensitive story….
great work Michael.
cheers
bob
very, very good. Pictures that really tell us about a place and its people.
Michael, I have viewed your essay here and also your website. I see a consistent level of expertise combined with an evolution of talent. Thank you: to see such work in times-past one would have to buy an inordinate amount of photography magazines! Why are we still subjected to such banal publications?
I’m truly impressed, Thank you once again,
Mike.
Hey Mike,
Long time! Hope you are doing well. I enjoyed your essay. I saw this on your site a last week sometime as I was browsing around. Nice work! A lot more dreamy than your other stuff, and I like that a lot. You certainly convey the feeling of the place very well. A very well edited sequence overall!
All the best!
James
Amazing…so textural and layered. I felt the isolation and got the whole feeling of what the place must be like. Edited very well…a concise and powerful essay with feeling, great angles, textures, and layers. And after checking out the work on Michael’s website, all I have to say is simply that he is extremely talented. Wow.
Michael, you have presented here an incredibly superb essay! Speechless! I love the images – nice moments, lights, mood, composition. You give a good sense of the place: it looks very desolate, but alive.
And like Jim said above, I would love to see more. I can look at these images for hours! You steamed up my longing to go to Russia – one day.
Michael, would you be so kind and share some of your experiences and thoughts you had, while shooting this essay?
Image #14 looks like the picture of a native person. Is that the case? What is the situation of these people?
Like Patricia said, I like image #6 very much, it reminds me of photographs by Gueorgui Pinkhassov which you can find in his book “Nordmeer”.
Terrific work! A great big pleasure to see!
Reimar
Don’t want to spoil the party but have to say this… while I like the images a lot I am somewhat disturbed to see how people easily make photo essay of about 20 images equivalent with the knowledge about the people and the places depicted (even if they never heard of the place before). “Pictures that really tell us about a place and its people”… Are you sure? How much do we know about Sakhalin and the life and the WORLD these people live in, just by looking at these pictures? Kapuscinski’s Imperium is few hundreds of pages book written by one of the greatest and once you read it you still can not claim that you know much about the places he covered.
Please, it is beautiful photography, I would leave it at that. It is a trap we easily fall into as viewers. If I ever again set foot in Warrensburg, NY, and I hope I will not, my photos will show people, and even animals more depressed then they really are (even more depressed then animals in Russia, if you can imagine that), simply because my impression of Warrensburg, NY is what it is.
There is life EVERYWHERE, even in Sakhalin, and where there is life there is as much happiness as there is sadness… well, almost. Now, it is photographer’s right to express whatever they need to express (and Michael does a great job here), I am one of those, but for a viewer to claim knowledge about the whole life/people/culture, all that shit, based on seeing a photo essay, it is a bit too much. Remains of colonialism perhaps…
Sorry. Love the photographs though.
This essay blew me away. Every image is superbly graphic and eye-catching while conveying so much emotion. Definitely a downer though. I would love more information on why this place is so left behind. Is there any hope in the people?
Great essay, Michael. Lots of strong images (in particular 4, 5, 11, and 12) that work really well together.
It actually reminds me a little of one my favourite photo-books – Jonas Bendiksen’s ‘Satellites’ – in its theme and style.
As mentioned by others above, I’d also like to hear some of the background to the photos.
All the best,
Andrew
If there is one place on Earth I am not interested in it’s Russia. “for some pretty personal reasons”
After viewing your photos, it’s next on my photographic travel itinerary…
Very Nice!!!
Velibor’s opinion pretty much summarizes what I had in mind while seeing this essay… The photographs are beautiful indeed, although I couldn’t stop thinking of Jason Eskenazi’s “Wonderland” meets color.
Best to all.
This is really gorgeous work Michael.
SORRY but I haven’t been around and I don’t want to hijack this thread but its just there is a relationship here (Russia) and this bit is reposted and its for Bob Black,
‘BOB I have been away… and now I am just speechless… this work is so poignant to me its almost unbearable…
I don’t need to sing its praises, because that would be simply inadequate. I have only one thing to say…
When is the book coming out?’
Beautiful photos, nice colors and compositions.
However, to me the series lacks the purpose. What did the photographer want to tell with it? It says that “these images explore the enigmatic spirit of a place and its people, long scarred from the Soviet era and left behind in modern times.” To me it just sounds like the usual blah-blah. Why Sakhalin?
The big thing happening right now on Sakhalin is a multi-billion! oil and gas project with American participation. I guess it was the main purpose of the photographer’s visit on the island and “the enigmatic spirit of a place and its people, long scarred from the Soviet era and left behind in modern times” is a by-product? It just felt that way. Something big is missing in the presented selection.
I find the two photos taken through a window of a commercial airline quite symbolic. The photographer “flew over” the island of Sakhalin without making any real contact with the local folks or understanding things happening on the ground, just scratching the surface. I can imagine it’s not easy because of the language barrier etc but it certainly would worth a try.
Beautiful series. I enjoyed the interplay between the compositions and the color palette.
Asher
It seems that you can make anything look like what’s is needed. I have met a photog once who was under impression that Cuba is “dead spaces” under communist regime while presenting very lively full of life photos. That was his mistake and it is not present in this essay.
The big disconnect I see in this project is that you can see and photograph exactly the same 20 kilometers from Moscow.
Photos as singles are very good in my opinion but as a story they do not convince me. I see a girl dancing, and a guy drunk, kids in school, but that has nothing to do with Sakhalin nor Kamchatka. It all looks the same in rural Russia. It looked this way 100 years ago and will look this way 100 years from now.
love and hugs …
running :)
haik
no, no no … you are not spoiling the party…
not at all Veba… i totally agree…
unfortunately… you speak the truth…
or in other words… you “Tell it like it is”…
thank you!
Great light…poetry everywhere. Congratulations!
Ludmilla…
I’m with U too…
Veba makes sense…
peace y’all…
Haik…
im afraid that You too also speak the truth… just like Veba or Ludmilla…
nice looking photos though…something missing …( not telling the whole story, maybe… very western approach…)
Hi,
Thanks everybody for checking out the work and really glad some of you enjoyed the imagery.
Am about to leave for the evening but will quickly respond to some of the comments and definitely later as well, if there are more. Really appreciate the inquiries and interest…
I have made two trips to Sakhalin and those trips have been my sole experience in Russia. The first time I went was to fulfill an assignment in 2007 about the oil and gas operations and the effects on the local population. The second trip was made last year to visit friends made during the initial trip and to explore the northern, more remote regions.
Reimar, #14 is a photograph of a Nivkh man on a train heading to the central area of Sakhalin. My translator and I spent time with this man and I was able to follow him around the hallways a bit. Later we met with him and stayed with others in one of the Nivkh villages.
Velibor, couldn’t agree more: ‘it is….photography, I would leave it at that.’
Matt, the short answer is yes, definitely. As Haik points out, ‘it all looks the same in rural Russia.’ In fact, everywhere, there are always some people ‘left behind’ in any of the myriad forms of Progress. This is not a new story. The common folk on Sakhalin have seen an increase in rent and living expenses in general due to the exploding oil/gas operations. The local people who have had the opportunity to partake in the operations since the 90’s have done well and have, for the most part, improved their living conditions. For those unqualified, without the skills, contacts, etc., who have not reaped the benefits, life has become more difficult. Traditional industries such as fishing, timber, coal, etc., are all still there but they, for the most part, are not as lucrative as in the past especially considering the rising cost of living.
Yuri, in some ways I totally agree these pictures just ‘scratch the surface.’ But in sequencing these images for BURN I was not trying to make some grand statement. I chose these specific images and sequence in an attempt to comment on the ‘spirit of the age,’ so to speak. For me the pictures simply explore the mood I experienced during two rather short visits to the island. Please do not assume I made no real contact with locals and had no understanding of what was happening there. I stayed with local people, made friends and tried as best I could to understand what is happening there with the time I had.
Thanks everybody and will respond more later to any more comments/etc.
Best,
Mike
Russia is an endless source of inspiration. Winterreise by Luc Delahaye, Zona by Carl Dekeyzer, the Little People of Siberia by Claudine Doury (http://www.agencevu.com/photographers/photographer.php?id=31) come to mind. This body of work comes very very close. The dog staring through the window is great.
The slideshow stops at nr 17n though…
the first shot is absolutely incredible …
my dear friend MCB – you know i love this work. what else can i say that has not already been said. every image is strong, beautiful, mysterious, lonely, etc. excellent edit. GREAT work Mike!! see you saturday night… xo gina
Very, very good set of images. Impressive together, yet stand-alone quality.
Nothing else to say.
The photo number 2 by the way is probably the most beautiful photo
i have ever seen….
simple-elegant-poetic
Good grief, I’m stunned and blown away. Awesome stuff.
I love your composition and sense of graphics, and the fact that you have placed your center of interest almost dead center in every photo. ( a big compositonal no-no for adherants of classic composition, hell, some cameras will even give you a grid in the viewfinder so you can always mindlessly plunk your center of interest according to the “rule” of thirds.)
Anyway, I love the stuff. Must go check out your website.
Gordon L
Its maybe the most visually beautiful essay on Burn yet. Ive seen it now 3 times and the colors blow me away. So do the compositions. Im wondering why #4 wasnt an opener..seems like that would be the natural place for it, it seems a bit out of place between 2 portraits. I like how some of the photos flow. #5, #6 and 7 work nicely together. #12 and 20 are maybe my favorite singles.
I wish it was longer. I think your edit gives a nice overview of the work but I wish there was more for me to see.
mike!!! so glad you got this on here man! this is awesome work. i remember seeing this a little bit ago. nice nice stuff. hope you have been keeping well man. love seeing this on here.
Excellent!!!
lovely essay, and all other essays introduced on your site, I am very admiring your work…
all the best, audrey
Michael Christopher Brown You make very good pictures. The work on your web site is very well seen. A lot[ in fact most] of the single images are stunning. The same with this essay, sort of. I dont think all the imagery is as strong, but there are some superb images here. Like a couple of others I cant quite follow the narrative though. Now I may well be projecting my own stuff here as I cant shoot narrative essay for shit, ending up always with a bag full of goodies that just wont string together. Its just a feeling i get when looking at your work; great images, seperated from a whole by their very intensity and stand alone power.
John
Terzani and Kapuscinski… two great authors and two journalists that stretched the meaning of journalism to a deeper level.
ciao Bob!
Great stuff for the most part.
I have not read the intro yet, just looked at the pictures.
I got a vague idea where this place might be anyway.
I just looked at the intro now and there is no really much to read…better.
For what it’s worth, I adore 6,7 and 12.
Micheal – from somebody who has gone on a similar journey myself, your photography brings back a flood of memories. The mood and emotions represented in your edit here could easily describe my own during much of my time shooting in Siberia and I am still very much conflicted about what I hoped to capture there.
I would like to say something about the comments made by Yuri and others expressing the notion that you were only “scratching the surface” of the place, that these images were simply a “by-product” of going there for the next “big thing”. Or as Velibor alludes to – that you simply showed the mood you wished to project: I am sure that Micheal was fully aware of these pitfalls while shooting, (I know I was) and yet his images succeed by most accounts here – probably more so than the images taken for the oil story that took him there. I guess I am saying that I applaud you for simply following your eye and gut.
I have on several occasions considered my trip to Siberia a complete failure because I tried too hard to avoid the above mentioned – I went in summer to show that Siberia actually isn’t always a vast wasteland of snow and ice. I wanted to show the diversity of the population there. How western culture was creeping in, the newfound wealth from natural resource extraction, the problems associated with permafrost and global warming, show the daily life of it’s people – anything but to avoid what I thought were cliched images of somber house-bound descendants of the Gulag.
Needless to say, I was wildly naive about the difficulties in shooting in the region (the language barrier being only one of them for me) and my ability to tackle ALL of these ideas in a single essay, much less a single visit. But, I tried so hard to avoid the obvious visions conjured up when one thinks of “Siberia” I feel I no longer followed my eye or my gut. I feel my images simply fall flat – lack the magic spirit of the place.
Making images that sum up the zeitgeist of a region is about as challenging a task as I can think of in photography – but as the term itself implies, it is only an apparition – an impression, hint, or suggestion of a greater whole – the ghost of truth.
Now despite all of this, it is hard to find a greater urge within me than that to return as soon as I can – it is an amazing, magical place and I see and feel that in your images. They inspire me to return and give it another go…
Best,
Joel
Well-said Joel, very thoughtful.
I have been twice in Siberia (around Chelyabinsk) on business trips (not related to photography): first time was deep November and landscape and people perfectly matched my idea/prejudice of former (former? damn, I went with the typical approach of someone grown during Cold war era, I must say) Sovietic Siberia: everything frozen, including people’s hopes. Two years later I went back at the beginning of autumn and I was surprised that all the activities I saw around were not matching with what I rememebered from my first trip. It worths noting that things are still quickly changing in Russia, but my eyes changed as well and at the end of my second trip some of my stereotypes about the region were definetely broken. So, Joel, I encourage you to return there and keep a “loose” stare… btw, Alaska Parks Highway seems a way more lonely and gloom place than my former Siberia on your website ;)
I really like Michael’s essay (photo #2 is absolutely great, #8 is Koudelka revisited… more documentary pictures, like #15, could be skipped imo): I think it conveys in a magical way the author’s feelings in Sakhalin, but in this case Sakhalin is just a backdrop and I’m fine with that. This is another facet of the autorship issue, I guess.
Veba, Panos, Haik and Ludmilla:
at the sake of defending ignorance, let me offer a quick conter to your suggestions about my (or others) implied knowledge of Sakhalin. In my post, I said i was familiar with the island and it’s history (including the difficulties that the indigenous population have had, not only with the Russians after colonization but long prior, with the chinese and the japanese) including it’s recent struggle with the tension between having been economically and socially abandoned by Moscow et al and it’s recent emmergence with regard to the oil and gas: a tune that has been playing out over the entirety of Siberia and the former Soviet republics by the way. Anyway, having a knowledge of a particular place’s history and wedged by this into a context of a photographic story, indeed DOES NOT mean I know anything about the people or what it means to live in a place and within a given history. I never once suggested such knowledge. Veba, i’d assumed you’d known me much better than that, and in fact, this has been a point of conversation between us in the past, our distrust of photographic knowledge, or nation-flyers possed as sociologists. In fact, photographic CANNOT speak truthfully of a people or a specific experience, that can only come from a personalized experience of having been, for some period of time, a part of a place or community. Absolutely. However, this does not lessen the power of Michaels essay, which i found more EVOCATIVE rather than insightful, evocative of the wintery time he spent there and the isolation he felt or seemed to feel or observed. Call it; winter’s song. If my language or the language of others suggests a tie to the ‘way of life’ for people who live in Sakhalin, then this is unfortunate and surely was not my intention, but rather that this particular essay, wonderfully observed and beautifully poetic, illustrates a particular power in photography. It also, it can be contented, points to other problems in photography: our easy seduction of fact for imagery. that’s obvious, but I have not SEEN or READ anywhere in Michael’s essay where he suggests that this essay the entire way of life or represents the nature of the life there. again, it’s rather an evocation,….the truth is that all of our pics can be used as that, and therein lies that problem for both the reader (if they think knowledge comes in the way of a photograph) or the photographer (if they think that just visiting and photographing a place teaches)…..but I’ve seen work, by the way, by russian photographers (some of whom are friends) that viewed from the same perspective fall to the same criticism….i think, totally valid, your questions and concerns have less to do with the essay than assumptions of the viewers…..and by the way, using the same logic, it’s easy to pick holes in Imperium as way….what are we to do veba?…that’s a more fundamental question…and I think, one that banishes all photographic viewing experience….does it not?….
and happy to read about Wonderland…a great book by a great guy….
running
bob
Ludmilla: :))
im happy you brought up my friend’s book…which is one of the finest books published last year….though i dont agree in total with what Veba has suggested, keep in mind that Jason spent 10 years living and traveling throughout the former soviet union….and his book spans more than just one place….the interesting question is this: what is it that suggests, through photography, the ‘insight’ in to a place, a culture, a ‘people’…is it time or is it the connection or is it the images themselves….jason had both on his side, time and a remarkable eye…and he is an incredible listener too….but, it’s a difficult question, and one that i think cant be answered by a single essay ;)))…ponimaete? :))…spasibo bolshoi…bob
First essay I really love in burn. Very nice stuff.
Fantastic photos!!!
Veba and others :))
PS…i think Veba, ludmilla, haik and others point/question is a very important one and one that each of us need to ask, especially for those who photograph places, people, of which they are not a part, so i hope i didnt sound dismissive of your concerns and comments (internet writing, where’s the voice ;) ), only that i have no no knowledge of Sakhalin but the minimal things i learned by reading and it’s funny, Chekhov’s longest book (as he was sent there to report on the island, the people who live there) was devoted to that mysterious and torn island, probably didnt even get at the stories inside the lives there…that’s a critical thing: we never ever, with words or pictures, get at the depths of experience of what is the lived life in any place…so yea, i dont ‘know’ more after watching the essay (even the extended version) or reading the books, but maybe, just maybe, the value of work allots us to WANT to know more (illusion?)…that’s the entire conundrum of ‘reporting’ of experience…i just dont think we should be too quick to dismiss the effect work has on bridging our lives to others….mabye a beginning of things rather than a absolution of knowing…hope my words ddidnt sound aggressive (still sleepy)…hugs, bob