The Lumiere Brothers Gallery hosts an exhibition of photographs by Mikhail Savin. He is widely known as a war photographer, his pictures of the Great Patriotic War have become classics. After the war, Savin worked for 50 years as a staff correspondent for Ogonyok magazine. And some of the shots taken at that time became no less famous than "Cat with a Shot in the Ear" or "Tank Battle".
The Winter Will Be Cold exposition is devoted to reportage photographs from France and Vienna, where Savin filmed Nikita Khrushchev's meetings with Charles de Gaulle and John F. Kennedy on the eve of the cooling of relations between the USSR and the USA. Now this topic takes on a new relevance. To appreciate it, it is worth visiting the exhibition. And now I want to talk about what is especially interesting in the pictures of Mikhail Savin - his amazing ability not only to shoot the plot, but also to immerse the viewer in the atmosphere of what is happening, to create the effect of presence. In this, he is helped by the choice of a shooting point, and work with perspective, and even a “photoshop” of the 1943 model.
But first of all - dedication and dedication. Indeed, in order to show the reader of a front-line newspaper a tank battle through the eyes of a soldier, you need to visit this battle yourself:
What sticks in your memory the most? Not like crawling under machine-gun bursts to take a picture for the newspaper, like going on the attack with the soldiers, again for the sake of the picture - all this merged into something single, terrible, bloody, which I don’t even want to remember.
1941 Towards enemy tanks. The viewer feels like a fighter pressed into the snow, feels the ringing frost on the eve of the imminent battle. 
1942, June 28. Commander of the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps, Lieutenant-General Pavel Alekseevich Belov. And again, not the photographer, but the viewer came face to face with a horse. 
1942, June 30. Machine-gunner from the Cavalry Corps of General Belov, Komsomol member Zina Kozlova. In a short period of fighting, she destroyed an enemy observation post, several firing points. Low shooting point - and you want to reach out to touch the barrel of a machine gun. 
1943, 16 August. On the paths of war. On the ashes City of Zhizdra. "The cat's ear has been shot through, do not retouch!" - M. Savin. The shot through ear needed not only to be seen, but also to be caught in the lens. There is a photograph of the same cat, where she looks to the side and the bullet hole is not visible. But then there was no “figure”, it was possible to see whether it turned out or not only in the laboratory. 
1943, July. Tank battle. Kursk Bulge. "View from the tank". The same "photoshop" - a mask is applied to the photo. The real view from the T-34 hatch is different. But is it really that important? After all, the right atmosphere has been created. Think about it: the explosion is real, the photographer lies behind the tank and does not cover his head with his hands, but rising on his elbows, he catches a picture in the lens! 
Seasons of the Soviet armor-piercer. "Summer"
1943, 25 September. German cemetery near Smolensk. A cross made of very Russian birch at a typical German cemetery after the liberation of the city from the Nazis is deeply symbolic. 
1944, May. Commander of the Order of Glory, 3rd degree, Komsomol sniper Maria Kuvshinova, who exterminated several dozen German soldiers and officers. A wonderful portrait, where the conflict is clearly expressed: the charm of youth argues with a huge rifle and the Order of Glory, which was awarded if a fighter "destroyed from 10 to 50 enemy soldiers and officers with personal weapons with accurate shooting." 
1944 Soviet 45mm anti-tank gun crew changes position. The heaviness of the cannon lies not in the cannon itself, but in the posture of the commander. 
1945 Meeting of the winners in Bobruisk. You can put the girls with flowers in advance and choose the angle in advance. But it is impossible, if it was not possible to shoot the passage and Lenin on a waving banner, to ask everyone to go through again. 
1945, 9 April. Let the soldiers get some sleep. After the assault on Koenigsberg
Mikhail Savin retained his lyrical look and ability to emphasize the circumstances of the place and the atmosphere while working at Ogonyok.
1960 Marseille police hold back a crowd of people welcoming the Soviet delegation. The police are clearly more alarmed than the common French. 
1960 Paris
1960 Paris
1960 Paris. Newsstand
1960 Nikita Khrushchev presents a gift from the Soviet delegation to the Bordeaux City Hall - a hunting rifle. Usually, when all the characters in the picture look in different directions, the picture falls apart. But here, on the contrary, it emphasizes the general awkwardness around the cheerful Khrushchev. 
1961
Nikita Khrushchev and Jacqueline Kennedy. Vein. Is it just me, or is Khrushchev embarrassed?
1961 Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Khrushchev's height is 160 cm. Kennedy's height is 185 cm. The photo was considered politically very successful - Savin took it so that the Soviet General Secretary was taller than the US President. 
(1915 - 2006)
One of those photojournalists whose work has survived to this day is Mikhail Savin. Mikhail Ivanovich went through the whole war with a camera in his hands. At the same time, his shots have become a real classic of the art of a military photographer.
Born in the city of Sasovo, Ryazan Region, in the family of a railway worker. In 1918, his father died, and a large family of 7 people was poor and starving.
In 1931, after graduating from school, he moved to live in Moscow. He worked as a draftsman at the AMO plant, and since 1933 as a turner.
In 1937-1938, while serving in the Red Army, he entered the two-year correspondence courses for photojournalists at the TASS newsreel.
Since the summer of 1939 - TASS photojournalist.
In 1940 he was sent to Minsk as his own TASS photojournalist for Belarus.
Since 1941, he was a military photojournalist for the Western Front newspaper Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda. The beginning of the war found Savin in Minsk. Participated in battles on the territory of Belarus, Smolensk region, Moscow region, on the Kursk Bulge, on the territory of Lithuania and East Prussia. He filmed the surrender in East Prussia, in the Baltic. For his unparalleled work, Mikhail Savin was awarded the medals "For the Victory over Germany" and "For Courage", the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, orders of China and Mongolia.
1945-1995 - staff correspondent of the Ogonyok magazine.
Honored Worker of Culture of Russia. He was awarded the highest professional award "Golden Eye of Russia" and numerous medals.
Traveled on creative business trips throughout the country and twelve foreign countries.
The work of photojournalist Mikhail Savin today is a model of how real professional take care of your business. Thanks to this attitude, the world got the opportunity to see the photographs of the war for what it was.
The true master of photography is Mikhail Savin. He shot with a film camera with a manual rewind of the film, not even an SLR.
First, choose an angle:
On the photo: 1941 Towards enemy tanks 
You see - the fighters are hardly crawling up the snow-covered slope with a heavy anti-tank rifle. There, behind the crest of the hill - fascist tanks. You don't see them - they are implied, and this causes tension in the frame.
Let's move on - learn to work with perspective:
on the photo: 1942, June 30. Machine-gunner from the Cavalry Corps of General Belov, Komsomol member Zina Kozlova. 
Zina Kozlova, a machine-gunner from the Cavalry Corps of General Belov, Komsomol member Zina Kozlova, destroyed an enemy observation post and several firing points in a short period of fighting. The low point of shooting, combined with the perspective from close to medium - evokes the feeling of being at the scene, you want to reach out to touch the barrel of a machine gun.
Now we learn to patiently seize the moment and notice the details:
on the photo: 1943, August 16. On the paths of war. On the ashes 
This is the city of Zhizdra, only ashes remained from residential buildings. One cat survived - and that one had a bullet in its ear.
The shot ear had to be not only noticed, but also caught in the lens. There is a photograph of the same cat, where she looks to the side - and the bullet hole is not visible. But then there were no reporter cameras with serial shooting, after each frame the film was manually rewound with a wheel for eight seconds, and even more so there was no “figure”, it was possible to see whether it worked or not only in the laboratory after developing the film. By the way, the film was also in huge deficit, they reported not only for each reel - for the frames.
Finally, learn how to properly use special effects:
on the photo: 1943, July. Tank battle. Kursk Bulge. 
The tank battle on the Kursk Bulge is shown as a "look from the tank". But the real view from the T-34 hatch is different. In fact, the photographer was lying on the ground behind the tank, and a black mask was superimposed on the photo during printing (the edges were illuminated with a curly mask covering the middle), imitating, as it were, this very view from the tank.
But is absolute certainty really that important? After all, the right atmosphere has been created. Think about it: the explosion is real, the photographer lies behind the tank and does not cover his head with his hands, but, rising on his elbows, catches a picture in the lens!
Learning to bring emotional conflict into the plot:
on the photo: 1944, May. Commander of the Order of Glory, 3rd class, Komsomol sniper Maria Kuvshinova 
Commander of the Order of Glory, 3rd degree, Komsomol sniper Maria Kuvshinova exterminated several dozen German soldiers and officers. A wonderful portrait, where the conflict is clearly expressed: a cheerful miniature girl, almost a child - with a huge rifle in her hands and the Order of Glory, which was awarded if a fighter "destroyed from 10 to 50 enemy soldiers and officers with a personal weapon with marksmanship."
Another example? Please:
on the photo: 1945, April 9. Let the soldiers get some sleep 
The photo was taken after the assault on Koenigsberg. The soldiers in the frame look like they were killed - but they are just sleeping. “They sleep like the dead” - the metaphor is literally embodied in the frame. The contrast of the sleeping soldiers with the destroyed German city - which will now be Russian.
Finally, the most difficult thing is the tectonics of the frame, showing tension and movement:
photo: 1944 Soviet 45mm anti-tank gun crew changes position. 
The movement of people and the heaviness of the cannon are shown, suddenly, not through the cannon itself, but through the pose of the running commander. Well, the atmosphere - silhouettes against the gloomy sky, where the sun is barely visible behind the clouds - but it still breaks through.
In terms of dynamics and tension, this shot is comparable to Joe Rosenthal's famous "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" shot: 
"Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" is parsed in any decent textbook on documentary and reporter photography. The "calculation of the Soviet forty-five" is not dismantled anywhere - although it is much clearer and no less talented.
And here's another point: everyone knows that "Raising the Flag over Iwo Jima" is staged photography. But it is not always possible to make a statement.
Here is an example:
in the photo: 1945 Meeting of the winners in Bobruisk 
You see - here you can put the girls with flowers in advance and choose the angle in advance. But it is impossible, if it was not possible to beautifully film the formation of marching soldiers and, most importantly, Lenin on a fluttering banner, ask everyone to go through again. It is necessary to be able to catch the moment with your eyes, grasp the composition and at that very moment press the shutter of the camera.
And finally - aerobatics. On the example of political photos:
in the photo: 1960 Nikita Khrushchev presents a gift from the Soviet delegation - a hunting rifle at the Bordeaux city hall 
Usually, when all the characters in the picture look in different directions, the picture falls apart. But here, on the contrary, it emphasizes the general awkwardness of diplomats around Khrushchev, who decided to surprise the French with a gun.
Or here:
In the photo: 1961 Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy 
If anyone does not know, Khrushchev's height is 160 cm, Kennedy's height is 185 cm. However, Savin filmed it in such a way that the Soviet general secretary turned out to be taller than the US president, and even some kind of helpfulness is read in Kennedy's pose.
These photographs fascinated me, and I think they will not be released soon. Especially the cat.
The true master of photography is Mikhail Savin. See for yourself.
Original taken from amphre
to Mikhail Savin at the Lumiere Brothers Gallery
The Lumiere Brothers Gallery hosts an exhibition of photographs by Mikhail Savin. He is widely known as a war photographer, his pictures of the Great Patriotic War have become classics. After the war, Savin worked for 50 years as a staff correspondent for Ogonyok magazine. And some of the shots taken at that time became no less famous than "Cat with a Shot in the Ear" or "Tank Battle".
The Winter Will Be Cold exposition is devoted to reportage photographs from France and Vienna, where Savin filmed Nikita Khrushchev's meetings with Charles de Gaulle and John F. Kennedy on the eve of the cooling of relations between the USSR and the USA. Now this topic takes on a new relevance. To appreciate it, it is worth visiting the exhibition. And now I want to talk about what is especially interesting in the pictures of Mikhail Savin - his amazing ability not only to shoot the plot, but also to immerse the viewer in the atmosphere of what is happening, to create the effect of presence. In this, he is helped by the choice of a shooting point, and work with perspective, and even a “photoshop” of the 1943 model.
But first of all - dedication and dedication. Indeed, in order to show the reader of a front-line newspaper a tank battle through the eyes of a soldier, you need to visit this battle yourself:
What sticks in your memory the most? Not like crawling under machine-gun bursts to take a picture for the newspaper, like going on the attack with the soldiers, again for the sake of the picture - all this merged into something single, terrible, bloody, which I don’t even want to remember.
1941 Towards enemy tanks. The viewer feels like a fighter pressed into the snow, feels the ringing frost on the eve of the imminent battle.
1942, June 28. Commander of the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps, Lieutenant-General Pavel Alekseevich Belov. And again, not the photographer, but the viewer came face to face with a horse.
1942, June 30. Machine-gunner from the Cavalry Corps of General Belov, Komsomol member Zina Kozlova. In a short period of fighting, she destroyed an enemy observation post, several firing points. Low shooting point - and you want to reach out to touch the barrel of a machine gun.
1943, 16 August. On the paths of war. On the ashes City of Zhizdra. "The cat's ear has been shot through, do not retouch!" - M. Savin. The shot through ear needed not only to be seen, but also to be caught in the lens. There is a photograph of the same cat, where she looks to the side and the bullet hole is not visible. But then there was no “figure”, it was possible to see whether it turned out or not only in the laboratory.
1943, July. Tank battle. Kursk Bulge. "View from the tank". The same "photoshop" - a mask is applied to the photo. The real view from the T-34 hatch is different. But is it really that important? After all, the right atmosphere has been created. Think about it: the explosion is real, the photographer lies behind the tank and does not cover his head with his hands, but rising on his elbows, he catches a picture in the lens!
Seasons of the Soviet armor-piercer. "Summer"
1943, 25 September. German cemetery near Smolensk. A cross made of very Russian birch at a typical German cemetery after the liberation of the city from the Nazis is deeply symbolic.
1944, May. Commander of the Order of Glory, 3rd degree, Komsomol sniper Maria Kuvshinova, who exterminated several dozen German soldiers and officers. A wonderful portrait, where the conflict is clearly expressed: the charm of youth argues with a huge rifle and the Order of Glory, which was awarded if a fighter "destroyed from 10 to 50 enemy soldiers and officers with personal weapons with accurate shooting."
1944 Soviet 45mm anti-tank gun crew changes position. The heaviness of the cannon lies not in the cannon itself, but in the posture of the commander.
1945 Meeting of the winners in Bobruisk. You can put the girls with flowers in advance and choose the angle in advance. But it is impossible, if it was not possible to shoot the passage and Lenin on a waving banner, to ask everyone to go through again.
Mikhail Savin retained his lyrical look and ability to emphasize the circumstances of the place and the atmosphere while working at Ogonyok.
1960 Marseille police hold back a crowd of people welcoming the Soviet delegation. The police are clearly more alarmed than the common French.
1960 Paris
1960 Paris
1960 Paris. Newsstand
1960 Nikita Khrushchev presents a gift from the Soviet delegation to the Bordeaux City Hall - a hunting rifle. Usually, when all the characters in the picture look in different directions, the picture falls apart. But here, on the contrary, it emphasizes the general awkwardness around the cheerful Khrushchev.
1961 Nikita Khrushchev and Jacqueline Kennedy. Vein. Is it just me, or is Khrushchev embarrassed?
1961 Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Khrushchev's height is 160 cm. Kennedy's height is 185 cm. The photo was considered politically very successful - Savin took it so that the Soviet General Secretary was taller than the US President.
Speaking about the big wars of the last decades, we often single out commanders, people who led operations, but at the same time we often forget that other people also forged victory. These are both directly front-line fighters and home front workers. At the same time, one should not forget about those people, thanks to whose work we can see the military personnel of bygone eras today. These people include war correspondents who, using all their skills, managed to capture military chronicles or military photographs.
Photojournalists of the times of the Great Patriotic War created hundreds of memorable pictures, which during the post-war years managed to spread through various publications, new and new generations are familiar with what happened in the bloody war. Today, many modern publications, using new styles of photo processing, publish old frames in a new visual reading.
Military photojournalists with their "soap boxes" often found themselves in places where the chance to survive tended to zero. It is thanks to the work of these people that we have the opportunity to touch history and see with our own eyes how our grandfathers and great-grandfathers saw this war.
One of those photojournalists whose work has survived to this day is Mikhail Savin. Mikhail Ivanovich went through the whole war with a camera in his hands. At the same time, his shots have become a real classic of the art of a military photographer. Savin was born back in 1915. Since 1939, he worked in the TASS Photo Chronicle. He began photographing military everyday life in June 1941. His camera captured both the bitterness of the retreat of the Soviet troops, and glorious military pages: the defense of Moscow, the Battle of Kursk, the offensive of Soviet troops in Europe. For his unparalleled work, Mikhail Savin was awarded the medals "For the Victory over Germany" and "For Courage". Mikhail Ivanovich talked about the talisman that he tried to carry with him during the war. This talisman was for him a porcelain ring, which was previously used for hanging curtains. Mikhail Ivanovich believed that it was this ring that more than once saved him from the most difficult situations, when the probability of surviving was minimal.
The work of photojournalist Mikhail Savin today is an example of how a true professional should treat his work. Thanks to this attitude, the world got the opportunity to see the photographs of the war for what it was.
