At the mass meeting (10 img)

[Yuri Pautov]

Priviet, dear friends!
I'm far from politics... But today I was passing by our Lenin square... There was a mass-meeting there and I decided to try to play the role of correspondent :-)
You opinion is very important to me, so you comments not only about these photos, but also about others (
meeting photos (http://pautov.viplast.ru/index.php?id=55)
) will be what I need!
So
1
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2972.jpg
A lot of people, and, of course, exactly people with their emotions were subjects of my interest:
2
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2985.jpg
3
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2988.jpg
4
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2978.jpg
5
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2977.jpg
6 Politics, as always were asking to follow them in their struggle ...
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2979.jpg
7 A lot of photographers:
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2973.jpg
8 A lot of guard ("law and order")
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2991.jpg
9 And TV correspondents
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2990.jpg
10 ... and.. a lot of people
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2975.jpg

Spasibo for your comments and critique!
Yuri

[Francois]

Lovely sharp photos Yuri..... and especially the ones of the old people. I can see them think.... "if only we had the old communist times back !!"

Interesting the photographers now have Canon and Nikon.... there was a time in your country that people could only dream of those.. if they knew they existed.

Kind regards,
Francois

[luckydog]

Interesting series of photos Yuri :thumb

I like the photos of the singled out person where everyone else is looking in different directions and your subject is looking at you (especially no.5).

[OneWayMule]

Can you tell us the reason for the gathering?
It will help understand the pictures much more besides the fact that they LOOK good.

[Yuri Pautov]

Can you tell us the reason for the gathering?
It will help understand the pictures much more besides the fact that they LOOK good.
Spasibo for your comment, OneWayMule!

I think that it doesnt matter at all...

1 At least here, in Russia. Its not easy to understand, but when life changes so dramaticaly during your life... Your life becomes 'before and after'. Its a bit easy for young generation to specialize... But what about others?
You have a job.
The salary that differs not that much:
60 rubbles - low
220 - very high
(And they said that miners had about 400 rub!)

And now - 800 rub - a nurse, 1200 - teacher.
And some have 30 000 or even 100 000 ...
The difference is very high!
BTW $!1= 29 rub.

2 Some old people are lacking of talking, seen other people, unity... Thats why they like such meetings.
If you'll ask them about reason - they'll say "Life is bad/We were deceived/Our gov - betrayers and so on..."

3 In fact this one was about procurements cutting down in defense industry - a lot of people work there...

4 I tried to show the characters of these people in my photos...
Spasibo,
Yuri

[Higgmeister]

Hi Yuri,
Nice group of photos for a mass gathering. What I see are a lot of long faces (unhappy) from the elderly and a lot of people standing about. What I'm not seeing is any passion, no struggles, just people listening and watching what's going on. I've never shot anything like this so I'm not sure what I would expect to see.

Your portraits of those you chose to do a closeup are done very well. But, I'm not feeling any conflict or joy. It appears to have been a very peacefully rally, more informative than anything. I too also like the ones where you captured their attention.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't hear the screams of an angry crowd nor the cheering of a happy one. You've captured a crowd intent on listening to someone else speak instead of having someone else hear their discontent/joy. It's nice to actually see some gatherings without the sensationalistic shots (fights, arrests, etc) which is what we are inundated with in our press.

I like these Yuri and in no way should you think this post is a negative response to your photos. Quite to the contrary, they are very refreshing.

Thanks for sharing,
Chris

[ian408]

One thing I noticed was the number of older people. I can see the problem
when I read your explanation.

Very nice series. Especially those pictures where you've isolated your subject
in the crowd.

Ian

[Yuri Pautov]

Hi Yuri,
Nice group of photos for a mass gathering. What I see are a lot of long faces (unhappy) from the elderly and a lot of people standing about. What I'm not seeing is any passion, no struggles, just people listening and watching what's going on. I've never shot anything like this so I'm not sure what I would expect to see.

Your portraits of those you chose to do a closeup are done very well. But, I'm not feeling any conflict or joy. It appears to have been a very peacefully rally, more informative than anything. I too also like the ones where you captured their attention.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't hear the screams of an angry crowd nor the cheering of a happy one. You've captured a crowd intent on listening to someone else speak instead of having someone else hear their discontent/joy. It's nice to actually see some gatherings without the sensationalistic shots (fights, arrests, etc) which is what we are inundated with in our press.

I like these Yuri and in no way should you think this post is a negative response to your photos. Quite to the contrary, they are very refreshing.

Thanks for sharing,
Chris

Chris!
Thank you VERY much (bolshoye spasibo) for your critique.
I needed it SO much!
Yuri

[Yuri Pautov]

One thing I noticed was the number of older people. I can see the problem
when I read your explanation.

Very nice series. Especially those pictures where you've isolated your subject
in the crowd.

Ian
Spasibo Ian.
Yes, I like them too. Thanks to my F707 and aperture mode :-)
Yuri

[ziggy53]

7 A lot of photographers:
http://pautov.viplast.ru/images/gallery/2973.jpg
...Yuri
Wow, A Canon shooter next to a Nikon shooter! Is that "glasnost" in action? :):

I can feel the love from here.

Great series Yuri.

ziggy53