Many of you have likely seen the attached photo of a wedding party donning gasmasks, and were told either one of two stories that go with it it.
That this is wedding that took place during World War 1 in Japan under the threat of mustard gas during the war, or:
This is a wedding that was held on an island where there was an active volcano that spewed forth sulfur from some underground depths and required it’s inhabitants to wear gasmasks 24/7. Neither of these, it turns out, are the case.
Rather, this is more likely the work of a photographer and artist from 1980’s Russia who was somewhat of an activist, and who was notorious for advocating against global war. There were many artists of the era who used the threat of global destruction; 99 Luftbalons by Nena, for instance. Here is the rough translation of the Russian article that likely was written to support this iconic image:
“The multi-frame poster “Anatoly Zhdanov,” a reporter for the newspaper “The Soviet Army” in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, attracts attention not only not so much by “doneness”, obvious incentiveness, alignment of each shot – something similar at one time was done by the reporter of the magazine “Soviet Union” May Nachinkin – there is something else here that makes one speak about the work of Zhdanov as an interesting, creative attempt to comprehend the problem of ecology, which has come on the agenda today on a global, global scale. Once upon a time, answering a journalist’s question about how he would define the genre peculiarity of his films, a famous American film director Stanley Kramer said something like this: “All my paintings are kind of message films.” An experienced, mature artist, Kramer was not afraid of accusations of frank publicism _ of his work (which, say for a director with a pronounced tendency to an aesthetized structure, would be tantamount to accusing him of having a bad taste) I did not accidentally recall Kramer looking at the photographs Anatoly Zhdanov – what is depicted on them would not long ago have been the subject of condemnation (if not stronger) from official critics who considered such futuristic forecasts to be “decadent motives,” “propaganda of the apocaly optical trends by means of photo art ”In short, we have before us a new, or rather, a modern view of the possible future of the planet from the point of view of assessing the current environmental situation. However, why is it only ecological? It is possible that Anatoly Zhdanov had in mind not only pollution of the air and the environment in general with all kinds of harmful emissions, it could even be that he had in mind the consequences of the uncontrolled production of nuclear weapons. I don’t know and I won’t argue – the author somehow works in the military One way or another, before us, in Kramer’s words, we see a message addressed not to future generations, but to us, today’s inhabitants of the Earth, inhabitants of cities and villages, who have not yet fully realized, perhaps, the whole dramatic nature of the problems that have arisen before the world.
To some, such a solution (meaning a purely photographic solution) of this topic may seem too head-on, and partly somewhat naive (the author of these lines must also be admitted), but this is a message, a slogan, an appeal, that is, a form specially designed for the immediate momentary effect of this effect, Zhdanov undoubtedly achieved the undoubted merit of his work. Apparently, it should be said about another, purely professional aspect of the series by Anatoly Zhdanov.
The fact is that the genre of pho mourner, chosen by him, requires the photograph to have skills and knowledge not only in the field of purely photographic but also – since this genre can be conditionally to call the genre of the cinema – a subtle understanding of things very far from photography, such as scenography,dramaturgy and directing It is actually impossible to solve the frame using several dozen extras without a clear idea of how, by what laws (and such laws undoubtedly exist) they will be located in the frame space, how to solve plastic moments and the behavior of protagonists of the crowd and etc.
I would not dare to name the works proposed by Anatoly Zhdanov, photojournalist Anatoly Zhdanov, one hundred percent success. But the significant creative potential that is embedded in them allows us to hope that the photographer didn’t leave ie attempts to continue work in this very difficult, no doubt interesting genre.”