Translated material
Tired soldier
The Winzavod exhibits the works of the World Press Photo winners
“You need to choose a photography topic with your heart, and not chase orders from fashion magazines...” advises Erika Larsen, winner of the worldwide and very prestigious competition World Press Photo 2008, an idea of which is given by the exhibition that opened at the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art. Works on life and death, politics and sports, war and peace and much more came together here. Each of the photographs exhibited previously appeared in a famous newspaper or magazine. All photos are accompanied by an explanation, some of which unfold into detailed stories. For example, the work of Olivier Kuhlmann, which took third place in the “Problems of modernity, series” category, will be incomprehensible to the visitor without information that the author sees the problem of modernity on television. But the photograph of the British photojournalist Plato would be understandable without explanation, although it is also signed: “Vladimir Putin.”59 photographers from 23 countries were recognized as winners in ten categories: Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, China, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands , UK, USA and Zimbabwe. One of the winners was our compatriot Vladimir Vyatkin (category “Daily Life”, third place among single photographs), who presented a portrait of the centenarian choreographer Igor Moiseev and his wife Irina. The main award - “Photograph of the Year” - went to Tim Hetherington (Great Britain). The winner's photo shows an American soldier resting in the Restrepo bunker, named after a soldier from his platoon who had previously died at the hands of rebels. According to the jury, the photo depicts "the exhaustion of man and the exhaustion of a nation." Other photographs also remind us of the tragic events, for example, the work of American John Moore (first place in the “Hot News. Single Photos” category), who captured the bomb explosion that led to the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Polish photojournalist Rafl Milacz played up the problem of the oblivion of the circus culture, which flourished in Poland until 1990. His series won first place in the Arts and Entertainment category. Series". The series, which depicts the abandoned building of the Julinek circus school and famous artists, would be quite appropriately titled “The circus burned down and the clowns fled.”
For the Russian viewer, one of the most attractive will be a series of photographs by Pieter Ten Houpen, dedicated to our outback, the village of Vladimirskoye, near Nizhny Novgorod. Particularly impressive in this village chronicle is the photograph of a girl standing alone on an empty road. It’s warm (this can be seen from the girl’s summer clothes), the sky is gray, twilight. The girl's gaze is thoughtfully turned into the distance. This is how an associative series arises: emptiness, oblivion, illusoryness. The accompanying caption contains a legend from the time of the Mongol invasion, but the author is much more interested in our bitter and tired today.