Heroes and Children

Heroes and Children -- a street scene from Odessa, Okraine. Best

viewed 'large'. Your critiques and comments are invited and most

welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your superior

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

I looked at this photo as displayed and 'tweaked' it a little.

 

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John (Crosley)

Interesting photo. The statue looks very "Stalin-esque." The children would be too young to even remember the USSR. Not that the present situation is any picnic.

Hi John, what caught my eye here is the movement vs. movement... The dramatic and pathos of movement of the statue heros( who ever they are), and the everyday harry of the running children. Very good moment of two different eras in time. As usual you have it!

This statue probably dates to Stalinist times.

 

This is near the famous 'steps' of Odessa, which lead from the city center down to the seaport itself. Those 'steps' are featured in Sergei Eisenstein's famous montage film, 'The Battleship Potempkin' about which Amazon.com's reviewer wrote:

 

'A 20th-anniversary tribute to the 1905 revolution, Eisenstein portrays the revolt in microcosm with a dramatisation of the real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The story tells a familiar party-line message of the oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) banding together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship's officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre.'

 

 

This is just a few paces from those famous 'steps'.

 

The statue is a tribute to 'fallen' seafarers -- and as 'workers' of the former Soviet Union, they are portrayed as 'heroes' -- hence the caption.

 

Odessa is a relatively new city, however, having been founded by Catherine the Great, and has no progenitor -- it was not founded by the Romans, etc., and is laid out on a grid, like cities in the Western United States with which it is contemporary, but most of it is in great disrepair. It also is unlike anything else in Ukraine -- Odessians regard themselves as more native Odessians than Ukrainians, and many have never been anywhere else in Ukraine -- unlike others in other parts of Ukraine. I know these kids on sight as well-fed, well-parented kids, but nearby there are a number of homeless kids, out on the street, begging or stealing (or both), some into drugs, well on into a life of hopelessness, and they gather in the downtown, making it dangerous for tourists, whom they can spot in a second.

 

These two boys are the picture of liveliness -- always running around, chasing and engaging in boyish foolishness, much as I remember my youth -- I've photographed them at least once before -- maybe twice.

 

And they have a future, unlike the young hooligans just four or five blocks (yes, blocks because Odessa is laid out on a grid, unlike most European ciites), away.

 

The future of Ukraine probably is bright in the long term, but in the short term it's problematic as the political leader's party (one of 25) has suffered a crushing defeat in the last parliamentary by-election; he's a reformer who just can't get a reform going, and his fired second-in-commmand who looks like a fashion model got a far greater percentage of the votes than his party.

 

Further, his neighbor, Vladimir Putin of Russia, is scheming against him directly (by raising natural gas prices Jan. 1 2006 by 400%, then cutting off all natural gas -- briefly after pipeline customers from Europe complained bitterly) and less directly (by bankrolling and pushing the opposition, a former criminal -- a man who some blame for the poisoning of the successful winner of the last election, today's Ukrainian leader, who almost died after being poisoned during his campaign with Dioxin, according to Austrian doctors who treated him (his face is very disfigured because of, they say, the poison).

 

I stay out of politics. I'm just a photographer.

 

Whoever wins, I can take good photographs (or at least try.)

 

There are enough political problems in my own country, (U.S.) and presently we're allies with the Ukrainians.

 

That's the problem, according to Putin. Worse, our Vice President, Cheney, seems to be pushing for a new 'Cold War' with Putin's Russia, which would make Ukraine a 'Western' proxy -- a position they shouldn't be in, since they depend for their heat and energy on Russia's natural gas, and until recently were part of the same country -- the U.S.S.R. -- and in fact many residents of Ukraine are actually Russian with Russian citizenship).

 

Civics 401d Politics of the Eastern Europe; the former Soviet Union; optional reading from

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks Pnina, your comments are heartening and always taken seriously.

 

I had a substanatial problem with this photo, taken after sundown with a stopped-down 70~200 mm zoom at full extension. It was stopped down to keep the statue and the kids in sharpness, not to isolate anything, and although there was plenty of light, this V.R. lens needed only a slow shutter speed, hence the blurring, which I find very worthy.

 

But the problem was it rendered the background building sharp but very pixellated in its grayness -- I was using an extremely high ISO, as you may have guessed.

 

So, with the pixellated statue, and the building stones of the buildings in 'sharp focus' behind I somewhat regretted having 'stopped down' so much, but this was a split-second capture. I had NO TIME to prepare at all. I was focusing on the statue when these kids ran by.

 

I posted this, got some ratings and realized that the photo was simply too 'sharp' in the background, quickly re-edited it by 'selecting' the background building and applying a slight Gaussian blur to it/them, to keep the graininess from 'mirroring' the statue and blending the building with the statute -- it helped keep the statue 'separate' from the background building(s).

 

Sometimes Photoshopping is necessary to 'save' a photo, and in such circumstances, I'll do it. I realized in this case that it was absolutely necessary, or the photo would be of not much worth -- I just didn't like it.

 

Indeed, I've been sitting on this since about January or December, and couldn't figure out why I didn't like it, and after posting it I immediately figured out why.

 

Once altered, I agree with your critique about its composition.

 

It's monument vs. moment.

 

Heroes vs. harriers.

 

(long distance runners are often called 'harriers' in school yearbooks in the U.S.)

 

In some way, it's almost as if these 'heroes' were stopping things for these youths, or paying them respects -- youth before heroics.

 

That would be culturally appropriate: The Russians -- and the Ukrainians are almost all Russians except in far western Ukraine, say around Lvov, etc.), since Ukraine was populated for Russia by Catherine the Great, Czarina of Russia, and the Russians have a famous love for their children -- to the point where anyone who comes into contact with a Russian child is apt to form an opinion that most are 'completely spoiled'.

 

That 'spoiling' must be placed in context: Life is viewed as being extremely harsh, and the youth are coddled right up to the moment they are thrown head first into a life that was viewed as almost unbearable (even until recent times and even now for many). Best, the reasoning goes, to give them all the love one can give them, so best to gird them for the harsh life to come.

 

Hence, in Russia AND Ukraine, family life is disproportionately emphasized over 'institutions' such as 'school', 'state', etc., because those things -- being new -- are more ephemeral, while the 'family' is something that is seen as more immutable.

 

And friendships also.

 

One always pays back a friend the money one has borrowed; that money may have kept a borrower from starvation. If one 'stiffs' one's friend, there will be no one to turn to the next time starvation knocks on the door. Until recently, there were no banks, jobs are not reliable and pay poorly, banks have a history of 'failing', emloyers can mistreat their employees (including sexually harass their female employees), youths are favored for hiring while older ones are easily terminated and so on.

 

All in all, Russians AND Ukrainians view these youths as 'ENTITLED' to chase and run about, as long as they can get away with it. After that, life will not be wonderful, (although for the upper classes -- there is hope . . . and a good education may lead to a life of relative comfort and security).

 

But I hope this photo captures the universality of the energy of youth, civics lesson or no.

 

Russian/Ukrainian culture 404D, optional reading,

 

John (Crosley)

Did you know that 'The Untouchables' famously (or infamously) parodied the battleship potempkin pram on steps scene. West mimics east... mimics west. The circle is complete.

 

What I really like about this photo is that the kids are running in the opposite direction to the outstrectched arm of their lost in time hero - for me this is a direct visual metaphor of how the eastern block young have rejected their forbears philosophy: at least how I see it.

 

Yes, I like it very much.

Ben A.

 

I did not know that about 'The Untouchables' parodying that famous movie, and it's been a very long time since I've viewed Eisenstein's 'The Battleship Potemkin' but since I've walked 'down' those steps many times (there now is a working funicular for the return trip, thank God, or 'thanks God' as many Easterners say), I've probably got to learn the history of them, which I never fully absorbed.

 

You'll find a photo of them with a child (in red - something that a famous movie director may have 'borrowed from me?) was skipping down with her mother -- a photo of scale, where the child in red stands out against the grayness of the vast steps.

 

And I saw the photo's point similarly to you, with the kids going one direction; the men going the other.

 

Or in another vein, the men, aggressively pushing forward, are suddenly stopped and stopping others, to let the children pass, as the children represent the future. (or is that too much projection?) I do that sort of thing but on a split-second sort of basis -- all internalized with my lens, my mind and my shutter finger.

 

There was only one frame taken -- this is not 'Continuous' drive. I generally choose my frames, unless lighting is tenuous and I'm trying to get just one 'portrait' frame in which the subject isn't moving, in which case I may fire several frames continuously, hoping that the subject will turn out to have been still in just one.

 

And as to the feet; if you look through my folders, you'll find that instinctively I split the legs of running people -- be they children or others, where motion is an issue. How I am able to do that, I can only guess, but I consistently do that, and I do it by choice because it represents motion better than any other representation, I think.

 

Thank you for your contribution, Ben.

 

John (Crosley)

Among the many viewpoints and contrasts expressed, it appears the main statue figure is holding his cohorts up from their aggressive forward progress just to let these two children go by.

 

(I made this point above, but not so clearly).

 

My thanks to the contributors who have pointed out the many contrasts of this photo.

 

1. Two eras -- Stalinism vs. modernism (though things aren't so well now, I previously have seen these two kids and they're pretty well off).

 

2. Youth vs. age.

 

3. Naivete vs. worldliness (implied from the context of the contributions; not explicitly stated). Youths are 'callow'; heroes and seafarers are 'worldly' and they seldom 'intersect' as here.

 

4. Compositionally -- children going one way, 'heroes' going the other -- a visual contrast that illustrates other contrasts.

 

5. Additionally, one might add, great 'mass' versus 'delicacy' of the running youth, or the 'inertness of the statue -- or its slow struggle, versus the quickness of the passing youths, illustrated best by the blur of the near youth and their split strides.

 

6. The statue figure in the front is 'halting' the figures behind to let the 'youths' pass by -- implying that one must let the future pass.

 

7. And, to make the first point more clearly, history vs. the future. The seafarers represent 'history' -- in this case a 'Stalinist' style depiction of history, and the 'youths' or 'children' represent the 'future'.

 

8. The various semi-hidden 'heads' of the statue appear somewhat serpent-like or hydra-like, suggesting something a little sinful (though probably not intended, I am sure); compare that with the innocence of the youths.

 

Any other viewpoints, class?

 

Photo Analysis 201 by

 

John (Crosley)