The Russian Photos Blog

Photo Of The Week: Freezing Vysotsky Tribute

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:30:28 +0000

Moscow Russia, 25/01/2012.

A man sing songs by Vladimir Vysotsky as hundreds of Russians gather, despite freezing temperatures of -15C, at the grave of the legendary bard singer, poet and actor Vysotsky on his birthday. Vysotsky, an alcoholic and heroin addict who died in 1980 aged 42 of a heart attack, is best known for his songs of Soviet prison and military life, and his acting on stage and screen. Much of his work was officially unpublished during his lifetime, and he remains a potent anti-authoritarian symbol of protest to Russians of all ages even today.

Video Of The Week: Russian Epiphany

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:52:07 +0000

Moscow Russia, 18-19/01/2012.

Some 70,000 Muscovites celebrate the Orthodox Epiphany holiday by diving into the city’s frozen lakes and rivers. Russian priests bless the waters and the faithful believe that by immersing themselves in the holy water they will wash away their sins for the year.

Photo Of The Week: Ice Prison

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:30:23 +0000

Moscow Russia, 14/01/2012.

Two women peer out from inside a prison cell made of ice in Moroz City, or Frost City, an ice town constructed in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park by a team of architects and ice sculptors. As well as ice sculptures the temporary town features a disco, hotel, fitness centre, post office and prison.

Photo Of The Week: Ded, Where’s My Moroz?

admin — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:05:46 +0000

Moscow Russia, 07/01/2012.

Ded Moroz and Snegurochka – Father Frost and the Snow Princess – stand in front of Red Square in pouring rain on Orthodox Christmas Day. Record high winter temperatures have left the Russian capital almost devoid of snow during the lengthy New Year holidays, and for the first time in living memory here has been no white Christmas in Moscow.

Photo Of The Week: New Year Day Snow

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:04:39 +0000

Moscow Russia, 01/01/2012.

A woman pulls a child along on a rubber beach ring as Muscovites walk in Kolomenskoe Park on New Year’s Day after a heavy overnight snowfall .

The Photo Follies 2011 Awards

admin — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:09:49 +0000

Welcome to the Photo Follies 2011 Awards, the Premier Photo Industry Contest In This Universe Or Any Universe Yet To Be Discovered™. Entries were judged by a jury consisting of leading industry figures, including a school of Barbary macaques, and senior Google Street View operators on loan from World Press Photo. Judging was overseen by the Russian Central Election Commission to ensure fairness.

The Shop Till You Drop Award [sponsored by Adobe]

Highly Commended: Terje Helleso, for Winter Coat.

Highly Commended: The Sun, for Libyan Low Fly Zone.

Winner: Huili County Government, China, for Walking On Air.

The judges’ verdict: By far the most popular category, this attracted a huge number of entries displaying impressive levels of incompetence. Swedish wildlife photographer Terje Helleso capped a 10 year cut ‘n’ paste career with an animal fashion faux pas. The UK’s Sun achieved spectacular results by outsourcing design duties to a 7 year old with a pair of scissors and Sellotape. The Chinese entry was however unbeatable, raising Photoshop incompetence to an art form: so powerful is it that the viewer feels himself levitating along with the subjects of the photo.

The Robotog Award For Photography And The Law

Highly Commended: London Transport Museum, for DSLR Camera Ban.

Highly Commended: Government of Slovenia, for Panorama Mania.

Winner: Los Angeles Long Beach Police Dept, for Art Police.

Photo © Tim Allen / www.timallenphoto.co.uk

The judges’ verdict: Last year it was reported that Kuwait had banned DSLR cameras. That turned out to be a hoax – but nobody told the London Transport Museum, which imposed its own ban this year. Meanwhile the Slovenian government took a broader view, banning all public panorama photography. Just to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, the ban was made retroactive: all panoramic photographs ever made in Slovenia are now illegal. Not bad, considering that photography has been in existence a century and a half longer than Slovenia itself. Long Beach police won by eschewing the crude truncheon-based approach to photo prevention so beloved by law enforcement colleagues elsewhere; instead officers are now required to supplement firearms training with courses on the history and theory of art and photography.

The Uncle Bob Award For Wedding Photography

Highly Commended: Lasting Impressions, for Where’s The Wedding?

Highly Commended: P&O, for Headless Bride Horror.

Winner: The All-Russia Union Of Wedding Photographers, for Avant-Garde Nuptials.

The judges’ verdict: The Derek Pye School Of Photography continues to churn out worthy award-winners. The Lasting Impressions video operator was unable to find the right wedding to attend after being uncaged; and P&O Cruise’s wheeze of having the ship’s chef double up as photographer was a recipe for disaster. Harking back to the heyday of the avant-garde, the Russian entry surpassed all others in its – ahem – creative approach to the art of wedding photography.

The Susan Sontag Award For Writing On Photography

Highly Commended: Guardian Eyewitness, for Pro Tip – Affordable underwater casings are now available for most cameras, while space travel remains prohibitively expensive.

Highly Commended: Guardian Eyewitness, for Pro Tip - When glueing your camera to a surfboard, it is important to choose your adhesive carefully.

Winner: Guardian Eyewitness, for Pro Tip - It is important to avoid laughing while taking a photograph as this can lead to camera shake.

The judges’ verdict: Just as digital technology has made everyone a photographer, so the Internet has made everyone a photography commentator. The web is awash with photo advice, but no other entrant came close to the Guardian for consistency and regularity: while readers daily admire the quality of the Eyewitness photography, professional photographers are equally awestruck by the accompanying Pro Tips.

Photo Caption Of The Year

Highly Commended: Eastern Daily Press, for Olympus Digital Camera.

Highly Commended: The Mail Online, for Media Scum.

Winner:The Globe & Mail Canada, for Caption Writer Meltdown.

The Mail Online's freudian slip

The judges’ verdict: The UK’s Eastern Daily Press made official what everybody already knew – that it’s the camera that matters, not the photographer – and adjusted their photo credits accordingly. “You couldn’t make it up” is the Mail’s frequent battle cry, but for the Amanda Knox trial the UK tabloid did just that, splashing that Knox had been found guilty when the opposite was true. But the Mail got one thing right, with a telling typo in one of their photo captions for the story. The clear winner, however, was the Canadian Globe & Mail, where an anonymous – and now missing in action – caption writer identified a previously unknown connection between the paper’s Celebrity Photos of the Week & the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Enron Award For Business Management

Highly Commended: Kodak, for What Happens In Vegas

Winner: Olympus, for Overcooked Books.

The judges’ verdict: As Kodak losses mounted, company executives did their bit by regularly splashing on private jets to Las Vegas. Olympus’ continued existence as a camera company had been a mystery to professional photographers, with the last recorded sighting of an Olympus camera at a photo-call as long ago as 1998. All was revealed when new CEO Michael Woodford inadvertently opened the books to discover 13 years and $1.7 billion worth of creative accounting.

Quote Of The Year

Highly Commended: Mark Zuckerberg, for Comedy Of Errors.

Highly Commended: Sienna Miller, for Tired And Emotional.

Winner: Johnny Depp, for Photography Is Rape.

Pluck me...we've got a leak

The judges’ verdict: Everyone’s least favourite geek finally admitted what every Facebook user had been telling him for years: but only after it was his own account that got hacked. Former topless model turned actress Sienna Miller refocused the UK’s Levenson enquiry into the media away from trifling matters such as the hacking of a murdered schoolgirl’s phone toward more serious issues: the Daily Mirror’s cropping of photographs and celebrity documentarians’ habit of chasing her down the street. Although not a contributor to Levenson, it was the camera-shy Johnny Depp who won by building on Miller’s riff to reveal the true nature of photography in a cover story in Vanity Fair.

Photo Product Of The Year

Highly Commended: Sigma Deutschland, for SD1 Morris Minor Edition.

Highly Commended: Urban Outfitters, for Sienna Miller Anti-Paparazzi Shades.

Winner: Hasselblad, for H4D Ferrari Limited Edition.

The judges’ verdict: Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humour? Sigma Deutschland attempted to kick-start sales of the SD1 by charging 10,000 euros for a limited edition version with wood trim styled after a 1950s Morris Minor Traveller. Urban Outfitters came up with a $12 solution for wannabe celebs wishing to appear anonymous. But racing to victory was the Hasselblad H4D Ferrari Limited Edition medium format camera. In tasteful racing red, and boasting specs including 800 horsepower and a motor-drive with a 0-60 speed of under 5 seconds, the H4D Ferrari was aimed squarely at a previously ignored niche market: wealthy middle-aged photographers with erectile dysfunction. A follow-up, the Jeremy Clarkson Limited Edition, is rumoured to be in the pipeline.

The Remix Award For Plagiarism

Highly Commended: Siegfried Kauder, for Double Strike.

Highly Commended: Cory Doctorow, for Boing!!! Cory Doctorow’s Daily Mail Copyright Clanger.

Winner: Bob Dylan & Richard Prince, for Everybody Else’s Images Revisited.

Photo by Ed Schipul (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The judges’ verdict: German MP Siegfried Kauder immediately fell foul of his own proposed “two strikes and you’re out” copyright law when two photographs on his website were found to have been hijacked from elsewhere. Author and Creative Commons campaigner Doctorow blew a fuse when he learned that the Daily Mail had used some of his wife’s photographs without permission, then went ahead and did the same thing with a photograph from the Guardian the very same day. But the clear winner was the world’s first plagiarism supergroup. Dylan was caught out claiming paintings in a new exhibition were from his travels in Asia when they were very obviously slavishly copied from a variety of other people’s photographs. In a deliciously ironic twist the fawning catalogue to the exhibition was written by Richard “Prince Of Thieves”, who had just lost his own multi-million dollar copyright suit for ripping off photographs from Patrick Cariou’s book Yes Rasta.

Grand Prix de Folie Photographie

Winner: Thomas Hawk, for The Photographer, The Entrepreneur, The Stockbroker And Their Rent-A-Mob.

The judges’ verdict: This year’s winner was a no-brainer in every sense. The premier award has in the past been inevitably scooped by one of the industry’s big players; it’s a sign of changing times that this year’s winner is not even professionally involved in the photo business. Photo blogger Thomas Hawk started the year promisingly, with a museum confrontation that left him facing a $2m copyright and libel lawsuit. But Hawk’s tussle with the World Erotic Art Museum was mere foreplay: the best was yet to come in June, when he accused legendary New York photographer Jay Maisel of copyright enforcement practices that would make Tony Soprano blush. In the ensuing firestorm Hawk displayed his much-vaunted commitment to transparency first by abusing and censoring anyone who disagreed with his frankly expressed convictions, then by quietly removing his offending posts. Finally he removed his blog from its long-standing home in the offices of investment firm Stone & Youngberg, where Hawk’s alter ego Andrew Peterson works, to remotest Utah.

Photo Of The Week: Condom Protest

admin — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:28:13 +0000

Moscow Russia, 24/12/2011.

Author and broadcaster Artemy Troitsky dressed as a condom, a response to Putin’s description of opposition protestors’ white ribbons “looking like condoms”. An estimated crowd of up to 100,000 protested against election fraud and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the largest anti-government demonstration in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Photo Of The Week: Sandringham Santa Dash

admin — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:05:55 +0000

Sandringham, Norfolk, England, 04/12/2011.

Runners dressed as Father Christmas take part in the Santa Dash fundraising run for the Norfolk Hospice through the Country Park at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate.

Photo Of The Week: Betrayed By The State

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 04:56:56 +0000

Moscow Russia, 04/12/2011.

A protester with a t-shirt that reads “We have been betrayed by the state” as Russian opposition supporters demonstrate on Manezhnaya Square outside the Kremlin calling for a boycott of the parliamentary elections.

Photo Of The Week: Working On The Siberian Railroad

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:06:42 +0000

Nizhny Bestyakh, Yakutia, Russia, 17/11/2011.

A railway construction worker laying tracks on the Berkakit-Tommot-Yakutsk railway in temperatures of minus 35 degrees centigrade stands in a works wagon as it rolls slowly back along a newly-laid section. The railway is an extension of the Trans-Siberian route, and is hoped to eventually provide a connection to a tunnel under the Bering Straits to the USA.