Alex Shoumatoff Reviews “The Russians”
I hadn’t seen Nathan Farb very often since we moved up to Montreal in 1999. He and I were best buddies from l986 until we decamped for Canada, when Rosette and I lived in Keene and Nathan in Upper Jay, two towns up. Nathan took the pictures for our wedding in Uganda...
Contact Sheets
I realized that I was getting to look closely at Russians in a way that few westerners had. I mean physically use my eyes and my brain to pour over them from a foot or even inches from them, As i might slightly adjust their angle to the camera or their head position,...
Laughing Woman
People occasionally ask me why she was laughing. When she walked in to my studio space, I immediately was struck by the beauty of her hands that I am sure had dug thousands of potatoes out of the earth and I really wanted those hands in the picture, so I used the...
Novosibirsk, Soviet Union 1977
How did I get to Novosibirsk, USSR, the largest city in Siberia, in 1977 making Polaroid portraits of ordinary Russians?
Boris
I photographed Boris in 1977. When we found each other again in 2016 on Facebook, here is what he wrote:
A Logo Design
This is a logo design by Tom Ridinger for an unrealized Ebook version of The Russians. He said we could use it if we want. I love it.
Ileyena
She was an aspiring artists and asked me if I would look at her drawings and I agreed and took her to lunch in the dining room that was only for us Americans. The head of the Russian minders, filed an official complaint that I had asked this teenage girl to lunch and...
The Book
The Russians was published in 1980 Read the Foreword by Harrison E. Salisbury.