I really like this picture of a young Russian sailor voting in the parliamentary elections. It was a routine assignment, an oblique regional angle on the main story centred on Moscow, from which Gleb Garanich has delivered a little gem which is anything but routine. The subject is readily identifiable as a Russian sailor even through the red fabric of the polling booth and it it looks more like something from the depths of an archive than a spot news picture.
I would have been tempted to crop it tighter to clean it up a tad but I can see he’d want to give it as much space as possible and the original version does look busier, more ‘newsy’ somehow. The cropped version looks more like a painting.
Which is exactly why it looked so familiar the first time I saw it - it reminds me of Vermeer’s painting The Lacemaker - admittedly it’s a guy, landscape and red but the position of the subject and the overall texture rang a bell.
Is Gleb’s picture art? No, for me it is news photography but perhaps it reveals the range and sophistication of the visual terms of reference photographers like him call on. It does however demonstrate that even in the crash, bang, wallop world of news agency photography there is space for stillness and beauty.
What do you think - crop or not crop? Art or not art? News picture or just Mr October in next year’s calendar?
Trackback
8 comments so far
[…] Red mistFly driveBack in Baghdad; a first lookNigel nails it!She never calls: Wannabes - an updateDeliberate distortionContinuing reflectionUS seeks charges against AP photographer in IraqOn further reflection“If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough” […]
- Posted by fotowarung.bazuki.com » Blog Archive » Red mistIt is amazing at times how unexpected news pictures show up and how I prefer them to the main stream images. Somehow this image looks like it would be perfectly in place in a 1940’s newspaper. Today however I feel it is worthy of being a news picture however probably not for your mainstream morning paper. As to the crop, I much prefer it without being cropped.
Alex
- Posted by AlexThe term “decisive moment” comes to mind because it has that surreal quality to it…only in color.(1)
(1) Henri Cartier Bresson
- Posted by Sam PyeatteYeah, its art. The “tighter” the image the better so crop it I say
- Posted by Diana Ngilauncropped is better. nice captured moment.
- Posted by ernst dirksenThe uncropped version is a better composition.
- Posted by BruceThere’s a sense as to where the light is coming from
which gives me a greater understanding of the sailor’s environment.
The uncropped photo is a more complete composition. It’s fascinating how much it looks like a painting, and it is a beautiful scene -but it’s only art if that’s the photographer’s intention.
- Posted by Graham[…] мог удержаться - фото из блога фотографов агенства Reuters. Молодой матрос голосует на прошедших в России […]
- Posted by Матрос Порожняк» Архив блога » Red Mist Rising.