Dmitry by Max Sher
Dmitry, a student of the Vyksa Religious School, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia, poses for picture in his class. An Orthodox religious school prepares boys for entering the seminaries and trains girls as church choir singers. There is a heated debate in Russia these days on whether to include religious subjects in the curriculum of the public schools. Many believe this move, if implemented, would further split the already polarized Russian society.
Website: www.lightstalkers.org/max_sher
Max :))
bolshoi spasibo!…Alexie and Sergie are friends of mine and Marina’s (my wife)…and we hope to meet you when we come again to russia in the summer :)))…
klass roboti! :))
tvoi
boba
To Mike Halminski: thank you, too Mike. Well, talking about the photo opportunities that’s something we all miss so many times, and so many times I have to FORCE myself to turn around or drop in somewhere.
Best,
Max
Jim:
“How do you know the boy is tall and gangly?”
That’s the genius of this photograph, we DON’T know..we can only guess. Ergo, my question, how do you know he isn’t (tall and gangly)? It’s offensive that my reaction to the photograph is “piffle and sentimental” and yours is, i presume, logical and therefore, valid. The beauty of art is that we are free to jump in, wander around, daydream, feel, intuit, free-associate, speculate, think, recollect, be excited or moved, wonder, share, criticize and nitpick even to copy. And that freedom to react in one’s own way is not piffle. It’s thankfully a right we still enjoy as human beings.
But would i expect that level of tolerance and generosity of spirit from you? hahaha, next question please?
kathleen, as Freud is famous for admitting, sometimes a woman is just a woman and a cigar is just a smoke. Reading raging hormones and transitions into manhood into an obviously posed straight up photo of a young man seems a bit of a stretch to me.
Max..saw your LS galleries for the first time..very happy to have ‘found’ you. I particularly like the way you animate the inanimate and the way you use your perspective / low horizon and vanishing points, your quiet storytelling; your narrative is quite like that of an absorbing novel, the kind you keep reading in the tub, even after the bath water has gone chilly. i think you could do with slightly better scans and a bit tighter edit..that aside, fabulous work.
ASHER…
makes all the sense in the world…
Friends, I think we give Jim Powers way too much power here. Yes, he likes to get us going and once going, he loves to keep up the sparring. But in the end, Jim never budges an inch and, often, all we get is more and more frustrated and angry. He reminds me of the grade five boys I used to know who made trouble just to get attention. As I learned in the classroom, the best way to respond to such attention-seekers is to give them attention when they are behaving not when they’re acting up. Perhaps if we ignore Jim’s digs and only respond when he brings up topics that deserve our attention, we wouldn’t get caught up in these cycles of negativity. And maybe our friend Jim would focus more on sharing the fruits of his years as a photojournalist and less on trying to get our goat. What do you think, is it worth a try?
Patricia
Jim, It was actually Rudyard Kipling you are quoting. I believe it is in his poem “Betrothed”. It goes:
“A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke”
I read a great response to that line. “a good woman can make you smoke – before and after sex. A cigar can’t do that.”
I am not a great fan of such static portraits. And when I look at somehow similar photographs (which are so many) I am expecting to see ideal compositions no imperfections. This photograph is full of what seems to be imperfections – but all together they do work perfectly here to my taste. It is very clever to leave the pals of the hands out which makes the boy seem longer than he is and the doorway behind him just accentuates the angular and awkward qualities of the figure, something robotic as Bob pointed out. Very good portrait to me. And it fits into Max’s style very well. Could be a part of the series (may be it is? I didn’t find these series on lightstalker site).
To Erica — thanks! agree regarding scans and edits.
Jim
a ¨bit of a stretch¨..haha, good one!
Patricia:
I try, but i will try harder..thanks for the slap upside the head..
“Perhaps if we ignore Jim’s digs and only respond when he brings up topics that deserve our attention, we wouldn’t get caught up in these cycles of negativity.”
Well, Patricia, perhaps it would be helpful if you supplied a list of topics that “deserve” your attention. It would save a lot of time.
Oh Kathleen, my comment was not pointed at you. Not at all. I just get tired of seeing so much of our precious time and energy used up on Jim’s thoughtless remarks. Life’s too short.
Patricia
Patricia, I’ve praised several of the photos and essays here. Must I praise them all to be worthy?
In the immortal words of Dave Mason:
“So let’s leave it alone, ’cause we can’t see eye to eye.
There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys.
There’s only you and me and we just disagree.”
Did burn go down for a bit? I just submitted a comment, only to have the site dissapear along with my comment. I’ll try and remmember what I said.
A note to Jim, Cartier Bresson and others who do not “get” this photo or others of its ilk.
Jim, being from your generation, (Im over 60) I can appreciate where you are coming from. I’m a small town portrait photographer. Most of my customers, and most of my colleagues would not get this photo either. I certainly could not sell it in my community, nor I suspect could Max to Dmytris’ mom.
Much of my own personal work consists of portraits of this “ilk” inlcuding favourite portraits of my children. My wife hated them I love them. They tell me much more about who they are than photos with a big smile. (moms won’t buy a portrait unless the kid has a big smile).
I don’t like everything I’ve seen here on Burn. I am trying to set aside my pre-conceptions and biases about what a photograph should look like. I’ve learned a lot here, and find the discussion sometimes educational, inspiring, and sometimes with a fresh look, I can see value where I saw none before.
Outside of what I’ve seen on Burn, there are some photographers who’s work though accepted by some, I just do not get. Some stuff from the “fine art” community especially I simply feel is pretentious, self absorbed, bullshit. Maybe it’s my own limitation.
This photo, along with the work of many of the celebrated photographers of past and present would be thrown out of next weeks print salon at our annual Professional photographers of BC convention. What is “good” photography is very narrowly defined and governed by a narrow set of rules. The panel of judges are “master” photographers who become masters by being able to fit into these rules and hang enough prints over the years to be awarded the designation.
More than 20 years ago, I joined this association and went to my first convention because I learned that Arnold Newman would be speaking. Arnold showed us a slide show with his famous images and told stories about them, and his experiences. Fascinating stuff.
Finally he shocked everyone by waving his hand toward the back of the room where the prints from the print salon were displayed and said:
“all those pictures back there are plastic sausages. You people are just producing plastic sausages. I’ve seen those images in salons all over the world for the past 30 years”
People were taken aback. Who the hell does he think he is? I thought right on.
I’m a musician. I love music. I love to play music. I love a lot of different kinds of music. But I don’t get jazz. Hate it, makes me crazy. Don’t understand it. However I know two people who are famous jazz musicians. They are highly trained gifted passionate people with a huge following and they play gigs all over the world. Millions of people enjoy jazz. Does jazz suck? More likely I’m either not capable or musically evolved enough to appreciate it.
So rather than assume that those of us who love this ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR image are pretending to do so just to appear hip, I invite you all to try and set your photo-egos and pre-conceptions aside, and have a fresh look at this photo with new eyes. You may even discover something wonderful.
Regards
Gordon Lafleur
oh, Patrica, i know it wasn´t directed at me personally, but your comment was so timely and spoke so clearly to my frustration that i had to thank you. Life is indeed way too short. Period.
kat-
Gordon
–!!!–
Kathleen
-!!!- ?
i liked what you said is all :)
Thanks Kathleen. I guess I’m not too up on what all those little abreviations mean.
Gordon
oh, Gordon, it was my own private shorthand..just putting an exclamation mark on your wonderful post..take care, eh?
kat-
Hi everyone.
Great portrait Max! The atmosphere remember me “Satellites” from Jonas B.
Pat
i love this picture. strange, awkward body, oversize jacket, body angles/furniture angles, the face blending with the wall paper. beautiful work!
Many many thanks again to all!
Max
GORDON…
i missed this the first time around…greqt comment amigo!!!
cheers, david
David Alan
Glad you liked the comment.
I’m loving Burn. Being able to comment means having to pull together my thoughts into coherent form. Thankyou for the opportunity.
I’d love to attend a workshop with you at some point.
Cheers
Gordon L