Comments on: andrei liankevich – belarus portfolio

By: emmett

emmett — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:02:50 +0000

I loved number 12! what a beautiful portrait, Very inspiring!

By: Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Patricia Lay-Dorsey — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:31:22 +0000

Andrei, thank you for taking me to a land I will likely never see on my own. Like Reimar, I ask why only 15? I wanted more. You are in a position to delve deeply into this subject and I hope you are planning to do so. Just to echo others’ comments, the TV pics don’t add a lot. Keep it live! I look forward to seeing more from you here on Burn.

Patricia

By: neven grujic

neven grujic — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:36:05 +0000

Congratulations on your publication on BURN!!!
first photo is my favorite.
un saludo

By: Eric Espinosa

Eric Espinosa — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:54:50 +0000

Andrei,

Congratulations on your publication on BURN. I agree with many who have commented already. Some excellent singles here but maybe not enough cohesion perhaps for an overal essay…but… I very much your first picture…a real classic..love it… I also very much like nb 9… nb 12 also… these may be stereotypes of what an outsider would imagine when thinking about an “old style” communist country but these are so well captured… Given you seem to be living in the counry, you have plenty of time and opportunities to carry with your work….

Good luck with it.

Eric

By: mimi mollica

mimi mollica — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:46:26 +0000

I found the single images beautiful and I can see that there is somehow a common thread that group these photos into one’s perspective. Still I would concentrate with one kind of environment (cities or rural…) or group of people (teenagers or workers….) so that not only you’d offer your perspective but also a statement.
Other than that, I really like most of them.
Congrats

By: Yulia Serdyukova

Yulia Serdyukova — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:39:34 +0000

Andrei, I’m very glad to see your work here!
I can only guess how difficult is to photograph a portrait of a country you live in. For me, you do a great work! It gives a strong feeling of atmosphere… and different moods and aspects. After watching this portfolio I feel like I’ve already been to Belarus… and the same time I became even more willing to visit it physically!
Good luck!

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:24:41 +0000

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By: Andrei Liankevich

Andrei Liankevich — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:43:49 +0000

Thank you , Friends for critics and support.
I completely agree, that is not classical story with opening and ending. it’s more an essay for me. I use photos in “Belarus Portfolio” as keys giving directions to understand different Belarus sides. I use photos , which are parts of stories- like president portrait from TV, because photographers till last time can’t photograph president in Belarus, or last photo- showing the “Great” border wall divides Belarus with European Union …
I am really sure, that every photographer is strongly subjective in presenting topics – that is why i decided to make “Portfolio” with “keys” and my ideas, which can be ways to understand the country i am living in.

Thank you for advices.

By: gaetano belverde

gaetano belverde — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:56:20 +0000

Very nice series.
A reportage with a deep meaning.
At first sight it seems a simple series but if you read them carefully you will be able to pick a wide number of tones. My compliment! GB

By: michael webster

michael webster — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:54:52 +0000

I think number 13 is an excellent photo. The subject is timeless. A boy, a boat and a body of water. I like how the color composition is divided neatly into RGB, with the R providing the highlight. I like the waviness of the entire composition and suspect that reinforces the languid nature of the scene. I, too, got a chuckle from the juxtaposition of numbers four and five. Such grim statues. Such grim people on the tv.

But overall, I agree with those who feel it’s either not an essay or not a coherent one. It strikes me as more a collection of spot photos. I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing, but I’d like to see more with the quality of number 13. I find the photos somewhat interesting as an evocative window into a place I’ve never seen (though as someone else said, it does look mid-twentieth century east bloc-ish. Still, it is interesting that it still looks that way). But I fear that, unlike number 13, if most of the other photos were composed identically with more familiar subjects — like if Obama were on the tv, or the U.S. Congress were in session, or older Americans were sitting in metal chairs at a patriotic event, or a hometown American soldier were posing under a pair of antlers with his kids — I wouldn’t find them quite so interesting, unless maybe as local news. The compositions, for the most part, are not interesting in themselves. They require an exotic subject.

So that is my humble advice to the photographer. Study what makes #13 so great and look to compose more along those lines.

By: cathy scholl

cathy scholl — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:51:09 +0000

Several of these images are absolutely gorgeous.
Very nice PORTFOLIO.

By: Frank Michael Hack

Frank Michael Hack — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:26:23 +0000

I found this essay (portfolio) very engaging. I think there are many lessons to be learned from history and in this montage Belarus seems stuck in a particular era prior to the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. I am not sure if I am getting the full story here but there is definitively a vision on Belarus that comes through which I believe is quite intentional. Also the nod to Harry Gruyaert is quite interesting and shows evidence of a photographer that is thinking laterally as well as visually. I am very intrigued by this work and look forward to more.

Congratulations Andrei

By: benroberts

benroberts — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:22:55 +0000

is there any assistance given to contributors when their first language isn’t english? the accompanying text here is littered with grammar and spelling errors, and does the photographer no favours. it’s sad, because the likelihood is that Andrei is perfectly literate in his mother tongue…

By: Frostfrog

Frostfrog — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:16:21 +0000

The TV works for me. It kind of implies that here, things are being done to impact your life but you have no access, save through the TV and maybe you don’t really have access there, either.

What’s I find a bit amazing is that throughout the portfolio, there are many images of vibrant and bright color, yet, at the end, I am left feeling as though I have journeyed through a gray, black-and-white, world. This feeling is established right off in the first image – such bright color, yet so foggy and dark.

I do the bulk of my work in hunting societies, where many people literally live by the food they kill, be it a caribou or a bowhead whale, but I, too, found the image of the father holding the twin babies beneath the rack a bit unnerving and creepy. I wondered what kind of life lies ahead for those two little ones.

And yet, for all I know, the hunter could be a warm and compassionate father. It doesn’t look like it and I would be inclined not to think so, but he could be. However we may wish to believe otherwise, photos don’t always tell the whole story and sometimes the story they tell the strongest is misleading – at least in the narrow sense directed towards the individuals. No doubt, in a broad sense, directed toward elements of society, the story is true.

Congratulations, Andrei Liankevich!

By: Bjarte Edvardsen

Bjarte Edvardsen — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:48:54 +0000

At first and second look it seemed like a confused mix of photographs that I were struggling to link to one another, but on the third look the variety of it makes more sense to me. I love the opening two photographs, obviously very strong, and the guy filming a nazi-scene or something looks simply surreal in this context and the fact that it is followed by an overview of people sitting in something that lookes like an important and strict conferance meeting. There is a sense of humour in the way you sequence this, although the intention itself, from you, might be less humouristic.

So the advice from me to you is to go even more crazy with sequencing. That is the biggest strength of your work, so pay attention to it and keep build on it. Fill in the gaps with crazyness.

Oh, and the ending picture doesn’t feel like a real ending. It looks like a picture that could come in the middle of your essay.

By: michael kircher

michael kircher — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:41:20 +0000

#1 is wonderful. Also like 13, 14, and 15. These four images work together. Should be the start of a more complete essay. I’m afraid the rest fall short in this regard, don’t seem to fit.

By: marikinski

marikinski — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:25:47 +0000

I don’t like a communism kind of art. Because I’m from former soviet Union I see it as something not interesting. it is very usual and not knew ,doesn’t give me some new information or emotion,technically good but that is not enough for me!

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By: Thomas Bregulla

Thomas Bregulla — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:51:20 +0000

Each of the pictures could be the start of its own essay. That is making me curious for more.
The name portfolio suggests to me it is not meant to be an essay, which is OK.
Some of the television pictures could be left out, but in the context of Belarus it may make sense to bring context to the environment of the portfolio.

Congrats to be published on burn!