In the spring I visited the exhibition “100 photographs of Sergei Maksimishin”. I moved from one photograph to another that struck me and wondered how they were taken. It turned out that Maksimishin was writing a book in which there would be a story about each of the hundred photographs. And recently the book came out. It's nice that I understood everything correctly about some shots. But the most interesting thing, of course, is not this.
Conversations about photography often focus on composition, lighting, or technical features equipment. This is all important. But how do you learn to see the plot? How to help circumstances turn into a photo? Maksimishin’s book is about how good photography is not the sum of its technologies. You need professionalism, experience, observation, quick reaction, patience and luck, which comes when everything else is there.
I offer several quotes from the book. Maksimishin's stories are like parables. Ready-made solutions no, the reader draws his own conclusions. But the photographer must think for himself, right?
1. Beer festival, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2000 
An old photograph taken at the beer festival in St. Petersburg. For my taste, this is the case when blurriness not only does not interfere, but works for the image.I don't like talking about cameras and lenses. It seems strange to me when a photographer changes equipment every year, apparently hoping that with each new camera the quality of photographs will radically improve. Perhaps this is true for sports photographers, but definitely not for life photographers. Increased interest in “buttons” is an alarming symptom for me.
In each group of my students there is a young man who is interested in my opinion about the amplitude-frequency characteristics of a particular lens. I have nothing to answer him because I have no opinion on this matter. As a rule, such boys disappear somewhere very quickly. Then they find themselves working as sales assistants in photographic equipment stores.
Entrance exams for the Faculty of Photography (the Galperin Faculty is the oldest school of photojournalism in St. Petersburg) are taken by several teachers at once. I noticed a pretty girl showing photographs to a colleague. An hour later I go out to smoke - the girl was standing at the window with a lost look.
- Did you get in?
“No,” the girl answered, almost crying.
- Show me the pictures.The photographs were so-so, but I really liked the girl, and I said: “Come study.”
From the very first lesson, S. began bringing cool pictures - such orange-red, very energetic scribble. “Look,” I told the erudite boys, “you’re shooting correctly, and the man is shooting well!”
Classes started in October. By January I was overcome with doubts. So that no one would hear, I asked the girl: “Do you have sharp photographs?” She answered quietly: “I can’t do it.” I asked to show the camera - you never know, maybe there was some defect. S. took out a budget film SLR with an inexpensive lens from her bag. I look at the window, and there the aperture is set to 16. I don’t allow students to shoot with flash. The duration of daylight hours in winter in St. Petersburg is 3 hours. “Tell me,” I was amazed, “what can you shoot in St. Petersburg in January with an aperture of 16?” “That’s what we bought,” S. answered barely audibly and blushed with embarrassment.
S. learned to shoot sharply. Now she is an excellent photographer, teacher and curator. And he hardly often thinks about amplitude-frequency characteristics.
2. Children's playground, Magadan, Russia. 2013 
Each master class begins with viewing the participants' portfolios. And every time I am amazed at how little attention people pay to the place in which they live. Having looked at a dozen and a half portfolios of Magadan photographers, I did not see photographs of Magadan in any of them. Professional photojournalists were surprised: “And the school matinee? This was filmed in Magadan! Or now, a communist demonstration. But Victory Day is also in Magadan!” And amateur photographers were surprised that I indifferently scrolled through the photographs taken on the beach in Goa. Many did not understand that not every photograph taken in Magadan becomes a photograph about Magadan and that a photographer from Magadan who does not photograph Magadan, which thousands of photographers dream of visiting, looks strange. And the most amazing thing is that many Magadan (Orenburg, Syktyvkar, Belgorod) photographers do not understand that they live in the most interesting country in the world.Russia is the most unfilmed country. Has anyone seen at least one decent photograph of how people live in Anzhero-Sudzhensk? In Lipetsk? In Orenburg? A photographer living in the provinces perceives this as a punishment from God, not realizing that this happiness is gigantic (everything is gigantic in our country) territories, many incredible stories and no competition!
It is difficult to take photographs in Russia. For various reasons, the main one, in my opinion, is that we have little street life. In India, Tunisia, and Cuba, people live on the streets and go home to sleep. In Russia people move along the street from house to house. But the more difficult a photograph is, the more valuable it is. A photographer who does not photograph Russia, but goes to warmer climes to take pictures, is like the drunk in the joke who is looking for his watch under a street lamp, not because he lost it there, but because it is brighter there. India is a good place to learn photography. It's better to work at home.
Having looked through the works of fifteen Magadan photographers, I didn’t see any photographs of a children’s playground where military vehicles were displayed - from an airplane to a tank. Either no one bothered to photograph this stunning place, or they did not consider these photographs worthy of their portfolios. It's a matter of beach in Goa!
3. Crossing, Kokcha River, Afghanistan. 2001 
Correspondent Oleg S., a former heavyweight boxer who had gone through more than one war, did not like his cameraman - a young boy whose first serious business trip was in Afghanistan. Every evening, over a glass of wine, Oleg told how his grandmother accompanied him to Sheremetyevo with pies. And a lot of other bad things.We are driving two cars to the front line of defense - me in a broken-down Toyota and Oleg’s group in a luxury SUV. Our budgets are incomparable.
To get to the front line, you need to cross the Kokcha River. At the river we are met by a dozen and a half “pilots” on horses - the ford has a complex fairway, crossing is their business. While the elder is bargaining with the translator Sadyk, three GAZ-66s drive up to the river, each containing an incredible number of heavily armed Mujahideen. We sit down with the soldiers. Cars cross the river. Leaning over the side, I use a telephoto camera to photograph the car in front. The car shakes, the picture “falls out” from the viewfinder. Oleg looks hard from me to his cameraman and back. Finally can't stand it:
- Why aren’t you filming, bastard?
- It's shaking a lot. “You can’t...” the young man makes excuses.
- Take off, I order you!
- Nothing will work...
“You bastard, do you ever watch CNN?!”
- I wasn’t taught that way...Oleg, in a rage, grabs the operator by the collar and throws him overboard. Knowing that our cars are behind us, I am not very concerned about his fate, but the Mujahideen were shocked by the action. One of them, leaning towards my ear, asks, pointing his finger at Oleg:
- General?
“General,” I agree.
4. Ice Kremlin, Krasnokamensk, Transbaikal region, Russia. 2006 
...I took this picture almost while running. I understood that the ice Kremlin was a strong metaphor, and I should revolve around it. It’s always like this: there is scenery - wait for the actor, there is an actor - look for the scenery. But, of course, I didn’t expect a character of such strength. Then this photograph was published many times; it was nice when the famous curator and editor Leah Bendavid chose it for the cover of the book “Siberia through the eyes of Russian photographers.”
5. Loading fish, Ozerkovsky fish hatchery, Kamchatka, Russia. 2006 
At the Ozerkovsky fish hatchery, grown salmon fry (1.5 grams and 7 centimeters) are released into the Pacific Ocean. From the shores of Kamchatka, the fry swim to the shores of America, growing up along the way. Having reached age, they hurry back, obeying an instinct called homing. Those few salmon that manage to elude poachers arrive at their home hatchery. There, the eggs are squeezed out of the females and placed in basins. Males are beaten on the head with a baton, their bellies are cut open, and milk is poured over bowls of caviar. Then both males and females are loaded into a car and sent for processing - they are no longer suitable for food. And fry are born from fertilized eggs. The grown fry (1.5 grams and 7 centimeters) are released into the Pacific Ocean. From the shores of Kamchatka they sail to the shores of America, growing up along the way...In nature, everything happens exactly the same, except that there is no one to weigh and measure the fry, hit the male on the head with a club and load the carcasses into the car.
Once again, a card about how important it is to give God a chance. The number of times the worker threw fish, the number of times I pressed the button. And only in one frame out of hundreds taken, everything fell into place. What seems like phenomenal luck to the viewer is usually achieved by statistics.
6. Cathedral renovation, Goa, India. 2006 
Once upon a time I figured out how to tell students about diversity in photography. “The average photographer,” I said, “will take the photograph “Vanya was riding on a horse.” The photographer will have a more interesting one: “Vanya was riding on a horse, leading a dog on a belt.” A good photographer will film it like this: “Vanya was riding on a horse, leading a dog on a belt, and at that time the old woman was washing a ficus tree on the window.” Moreover, this whole wedding will probably be started for the sake of the ficus tree.”This simple idea went viral on the Internet and began to be perceived as a universal instruction for taking good photographs. Of course this is not true. Diversity is nothing more than technology. I know a lot of bad, complex photographs and a lot of simple and brilliant ones.
7. Wedding, Sevastopol, Ukraine. 2007 
Next to Don Quixote is always Sancho Panza, Piglet minces behind Winnie the Pooh, the musketeers' servants are parodies of their masters, and the lyrical-dramatic duet of Shrek and Fiona is sung along as best they can by Donkey and Dragon.11 February 2011, 22:15At seminars, illustrating the simple idea that a good picture must have a conflict (high and low, pathetic and ordinary, round and sharp, in the end, visible and expected), I cite as an example a brilliant review that was given by a wonderful photo editor about 20 years ago Vasily K. Looking at someone’s wondrously beautiful landscape, Vasily said thoughtfully: “Well, that’s a good card. But if the drunken paratrooper had a goat in the background, it wouldn’t be worth it!” I don't like pathos. Apparently, in his youth he sat through Komsomol meetings. That's why I always look for a goat in the frame. No matter what you shoot.
Gossipnik often posts photo sets of foreign photographers, but we also have something to be proud of. Sergey Maximishin- Russian photo reporter, one of the best in the world, two-time winner of the World Press Photo award, born in 1964 in the city of Kodyma, Odessa region. I studied at school in Kerch, Crimea. From there I went to Leningrad to go to college. He studied at the physics and mechanics department of the Leningrad Polytechnic University, the department of experimental nuclear physics - from where he was successfully expelled from the third year. In 1996, Sergei heard on the radio that they were recruiting for the Faculty of Photojournalists at the Union of Journalists. He entered there and studied at the faculty for two years, publishing in St. Petersburg newspapers and magazines. In 1998, the default crippled the business, and Sergei decided to devote himself completely to photography. At the beginning of 1999, S. Maximishin was hired by the newspaper "News". In the winter of 2000, Sergei worked in Chechnya, at the same time he began to publish in Western media. In the fall of 2001, Maximishin went to work in Afghanistan, in the fall of 2002 - to Iraq. Since the fall of 2003, Sergei Maximishin switched to free bread, Now he is a freelance photographer. His interests in the West are represented by a German agency. "Focus". Sergey's main customers are magazines Newsweek (USA) And Stern (Germany). He also worked for Geo (Germany), Time, Financial Times, Der Spiegel, ESPN Magazine, Elle (France) etc. Sergey Maksimishin occupied 16 times top places at the competition"Russia Press Photo" . Also first places in the "WorldPressPhoto" competition in the categories (2004)
And "Art - Single Photograph"
"Everyday Life" (2006). 1. Restaurant "Call of Ilyich",, 2003.
Saint Petersburg
2. Moscow businessman and his wife on board their own ship, Moscow, 2004.
3. 1st May, St. Petersburg, 2000
4. Wall, St. Petersburg, 2003.
6. Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 2002.
7. Colonial-style embankment, Sousse, Tunisia, 2001
8. Detoxification center, St. Petersburg, 2003
9. Tea party of the amateur “Naive Theater” troupe at the Psycho-neurological boarding school N7, St. Petersburg, 2003 10. Moscow, 2004
11. Yamal, 2003
12. Lake Zaisan, Kazakhstan, 2004
13. Grozny, Chechnya, 2000
14. Grozny, Chechnya, 2000.
15. Chechnya, 2000
16. Gudermes, Chechnya, 2003.
17. Boy loading a donkey, Afghanistan, 2001.
18. Children watch the training of recruits, Afghanistan, 2001.
19. Afghanistan, 2001
20. Servant lighting a candle, Afghanistan, 2001
21. Karnataka State, India, 2002.
22. Tobolsk, 2006
23. Outpost, Kazbegi, Georgia, 2005
24. Goldfish seller, Baghdad, Iraq, 2002.
25. Brick factory, Iraq, 2002
26. 38th parallel. North Korean border guards, Pongmonjong, North Korea, 2005.
27. Rural Church, Aramuz Village, Armenia, 2007.
28. Fish hatchery, Kamchatka, 2006 29. Sisters Fatima and Zukhra, their mother Jamila and aunt Natifa are waiting for the arrival of a school bus, Chegem Gorge, Kabardino-Balkaria, 2008. 
30. Theological College, Makhachkala, 2008
31. Quarry, Goa, India, 2008
As part of the 31 DAYS FOTOFEST festival, the exhibition “100 photographs of Sergei Maksimishin” is opening today (May 15) in Moscow at the Artplay design center - an attempt by the author to evaluate the results of his work over the past 15 years. They helped Sergei choose photos former director photo services of the magazine “Russian Reporter” Andrey Polikanov, as well as photographer and photo editor Artem Chernov.
Of the 100 photographs presented at the exhibition, the editors of BigPicchi chose 30 to their taste. We strongly recommend everyone to go to the exhibition. And also for a creative meeting with Sergei Maximishin, which will take place tomorrow (May 16) in the British higher school design at 18:00. You can find out more details and sign up for an appointment using this link.
Lake Zaysan. Kazakhstan. 2004
Vladimir Putin. Saint Petersburg. 2003
Mariinskii Opera House. Saint Petersburg. 2002
Restaurant “Call of Ilyich”. Saint Petersburg. November 2003
Moscow businessman on board his own ship. Moscow. 2005
Grozny. Chechnya. 2000
Swimming in the fountain. Gudermes, Chechnya. 2003
Sobering-up station. Saint Petersburg. 2003
Animal farm "Pioneer". Mshinskaya village, Leningrad region. 2002
Feeding pigeons. Saint Petersburg. 2001
Tea party of the amateur “Naive Theater” troupe at psychoneurological boarding school No. 7. Saint Petersburg. 2003
East Kazakhstan region, Kazakhstan. 2004
A holiday in honor of the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of the village of Aramus. Armenia. 2007
Waiting for the school bus. Aul El-Tyuby, Kabardino-Balkaria. 2008
Theological College. Makhachkala. 2008
Afternoon tea in the cadet corps. Sysert, Sverdlovsk region. 2008
Center social rehabilitation people with autism spectrum disorders “Anton is right here.” Saint Petersburg. 2014
Tango club. Voronezh. 2015
Rally of leftist youth movements. Moscow. 2010
Lenin's death mask. Lenin Museum, Ulyanovsk. 2010
Insemination technician Masha (right) and her sister, milkmaid Lyuba. Tosnensky district, Leningrad region. 2004
Sulawesi Island. Indonesia. 2012
The boys watch the training of new recruits. Afghanistan. 2001
Goldfish seller. Baghdad. 2002
Tourists from mainland China in Hong Kong. 2012
Neighborhoods of Delhi. India. 2013
Temple police. Isfahan, Iran. 2005
Trinidad de Cuba. 2009
Positions of the Northern Alliance near the village of Tashty-Kala. Afghanistan. 2001
38th parallel. Border between North Korea and South Korea. 2005
At the site forum, the idea was expressed to interview the entire Nonstop Photos community famous Russian and foreign working photographers. The first “attack” of the collective “questioner” fell on Sergei Maksimishin, a photojournalist whose photographs from hot spots on the Izvestia newspaper page attract the attention of photography lovers of all genres.Igor Kultyshkin: Does the concept of “Russian photography” exist?
Sergey Maximishin: I can only talk about what I know, that is, not about photography in general, but about its small part - photojournalism. The average level of Russian photographers working for the press is disproportionately lower than in the West; photography ends where saving film begins. In addition, the level of understanding of the tasks is extremely low, as a result of the lack of photographic education, and not only and not so much of photographers as of customers - editors of publications.
Last year I photographed the floods in Yakutia, working with dozens of local newspaper photographers. Almost everything that was filmed was taken by local guys to the Yakut news agency in the hope that these pictures would be sold. 98% of the hundreds of pictures I looked at were photographs of flooded houses. 2% the same, but from a helicopter. And no one had the imagination to sit on a boat with the Ministry of Emergency Situations and photograph, for example, how people sitting on the roof of a house drink tea or cook soup. No one explained to these photographers that people are interested in people, not houses.
Despite the low average level, in Russia, of course, there are guys who successfully work for good magazines, shoulder to shoulder with Western stars. A dozen or two Russian photographers work quite at the level of world standards, and often exceed them. Therefore, speaking about “Russian” and “non-Russian” photography, I would talk about the works of the best Russians. In my opinion, Russians in the word “photojournalist” emphasize the word “journalist”. There is too much literature and too little music in Russian pictures; the plot dominates the form. Another problem with Russian photography is the tendency towards perfectionism and excessive structure of the picture. In Russian pictures these are the words of Yura Kozyrev, who judged World Press Photo twice, there is too much intense work of the photographer and too little of the fleeting, accidental, there is no graceful carelessness, there is no feeling of the uniqueness of the moment actually “photographic”. Nevertheless, Russian photography is interesting to me simply because it is Russian. Russians are primarily concerned with Russian answers to Russian questions.
Hooligan element: When you go to shoot a report, do you already have an attitude towards the event in your head, or do you try to free yourself as much as possible from this attitude?
Sergey Maximishin: When I go to film the opening of an exhibition in the Hermitage, I think that the opening of an exhibition is good. And when I go to film the trial of a maniac who tortured 17 young innocent girls, I think it’s bad. And I’m unlikely to be able to free myself from my attitude to the event, even if I tried.
Naturally, it happens that while filming a story, you begin to better understand the phenomenon, event or process that you are trying to tell about. Sometimes the attitude changes radically from plus to minus. So, when I was going to film a story about the Lilliputian circus, my attitude towards the establishment was sharply negative - like a cheap fair booth. After talking with little people, I looked at it from their side and now I understand that the circus for them is one of the few opportunities for a decent existence in the world “ big people“, and to deprive them of this opportunity would be extremely cruel.
Hooligan element: How do you personally feel about production elements when filming scenes from Everyday life, and how often, in your opinion, do newspaper photojournalists resort to her help?
Sergey Maximishin: I have a negative attitude towards elements of the production, but without extremism. If the desk lamp is in my way, I can turn it off, and if my slippers are in the way, I can move them. Regarding the direction of events or genre, this is certainly unacceptable. Although, putting your right hand on your left heart, who among us is without sin? But there is no joy from the picture. She's like a counterfeit coin in a collection. My fellow collectors are jealous, but I myself am disgusted. Regarding colleagues, there are recognized masters of shooting very short feature films. I won’t name names. In general, this is extremely complex issue
, similar to the artifact problem in experimental physics or biology it is very difficult to take into account the influence of the observer, experimenter or measurer on the process under study (an autopsy showed that the cause of death is an autopsy). Often we photograph not “life”, but the reaction of “life” to the photographer. And the question of “truth” in photography is not so simple
Hooligan element: Garik Pinkhasov once told me an interesting story. He filmed either in Riga or in Vilnius the shooting of demonstrators by riot police. It was night and they pulled him by the sleeve to remove the dead. Someone lifted the tarpaulin and Garik took photographs of the bodies of the dead, barely visible in the darkness, with a flash. He sent the undeveloped films to Paris. When he saw sharp and bright pictures with corpses and pools of blood, he was amazed because this is not true, because no one could see it it was dark
Sergey Maximishin: What are you trying to show in the report? The event, the attitude of the participants themselves towards it, your attitude, feeling?
If I managed to adequately reflect all four positions, the card was a success. I looked at the work at the link. One big question: how can you take photos like THIS!!!? I seem to have stopped trying:((. But seriously, I want to ask: do you use zooms during reportage shooting? Or do you carry several cameras with different lenses? Or do you have time to change lenses? Or all of them together?
Sergey Maximishin: From optics I have 17-35, 50, 28-70 and 70-200.
All except fifty dollars, 2.8. Fifty dollars is very cheap, plastic, 1.8. On business trips, as a rule, I shoot with two cameras: one wide-angle, the other telephoto. Vadim Raskladushkin:
Sergey Maximishin: What is the role of color in your photographs?
Exactly the same as the role of light, composition, rhythm, rhyme Color is one of the means of expression. Having the audacity to consider myself a color photographer, I often understand that, being decolorized, the card does not lose at all, and sometimes even wins. Well, thank God. Whoever needs it will discolor it. Lilac Steam Locomotive: Sergey, you first shoot the film, and then choose successful shots
Sergey Maximishin: by composition, color, etc.? Or do you wait for EVERY frame, prepare, know what will happen next? This is all, of course, for reportage shooting.
First I wait, prepare and know, then I shoot the film and more than one, and then I choose the best. Although, of course, there is also shooting on the fly. In general, people often ask how the photographer managed to shoot something As a rule, this is not a question of reaction, but a question of patience and intuition. Tarasevich, they say, waited for cards for 8 hours without leaving his spot. alpauk:
Sergey Maximishin: How do you like this situation: a very good shot came out, its value goes beyond the scope of a specific editorial assignment. 3 megapixels isn't it a shame? Or is this a whim of an amateur photographer? It's a shame. It’s doubly disappointing when you can’t complete a specific editorial task because you don’t have digital camera
. I shoot digital only in cases of extreme necessity or a direct request from the customer (as was the case in Iraq). Alpatkin Alexandr:
Sergey Maximishin: The main feature is not to bring the situation to a critical point. According to my observations, there are photographers who are always beaten, and there are those who are almost never beaten. Apparently, it’s like with dogs: dogs bite those who are afraid, reacting to the smell of adrenaline as an irritant. I think that the attitude of people towards a photographer is mainly determined by the attitude of the photographer towards people. In general, people, as a rule, enjoy attention; contrary to popular belief, they like the fact that they are interesting. Including the photographer. I very rarely take pictures hidden camera I hardly use a telephoto camera. A “conventional” camera, in my opinion, is significantly more effective method shooting.
. I shoot digital only in cases of extreme necessity or a direct request from the customer (as was the case in Iraq). If possible, a little about the history of the filming of the “Larissa Your Dog” series.
Sergey Maximishin: The simplest story I met Larisa on Nevsky and agreed to shoot. I filmed for four days.
Andrew Sheltoff: I would like to know about the circumstances surrounding the creation of the “Calvary” photograph. Is this a report or a production? What is the rationale behind the choice of name?
Sergey Maximishin: This is a shoot for Ogonyok about the St. Petersburg club “Hali-Gali”. A cheerful group of banking people is walking. Friends ordered a striptease on the table for the birthday boy. I was shooting almost blindly; it was very dark there, illuminating it with the flash back and up. The company was completely drunk, they didn’t care about me. This picture is one of the most innocent ones from that shoot, but Ogonyok didn’t even post it. About the name, who knows? In terms of formal features, everything that happens reminds me of a crucifixion. And there's a crucifix on the wall
Question: What else would you like to say to aspiring authors? :-)
Sergey Maximishin: Wish you good cards.
- Maksimishin - what is he like? Small, bald, bearded. Lives in St. Petersburg. Photographer. He has a wife, two sons, two cats and a dog. How do you translate the phrase “Maksimishin small” from Russian into photography?
Text: NATALIA UDARTSEVA; Photo: SERGEY MAKSIMISHIN
Sergey Maximishin.
Photo: Tatyana KUznetsova
Sergei Maximishin energetically teaches a photojournalism course. The topic of the lesson is a photo story about a person. Sergey explains its main components “in person”. Twice a month Sergei comes to Moscow to teach students of the photo history course at the School of Visual Arts. For the sixth year in a row, open displays of works by students of Sergei Maksimishin’s course are becoming an event. In his hometown, he taught at the TSEKH school, and now teaches students at the Galperin Faculty of Photography, whose dean, Pavel Mikhailovich Markin, recognized a world-class photographer in the manager of the Russian-Dutch company in the late 90s.
Sergei’s life schedule is strictly scheduled: orders from leading publications and agencies PanosPictures and Focus, classes in photojournalism courses in Moscow and St. Petersburg, lectures and master classes from different schools in different cities and countries. Despite his busy schedule, he manages to be active on Facebook - he has more than 12,000 subscribers and friends - respond to and participate in significant social events, keep abreast of new trends, work on the jury of various photo competitions and festivals, follow new book releases and maintain extensive correspondence . Sometimes he pleases his fans with rare exhibitions and writes a second book, which everyone is looking forward to (the first book, “The Last Empire. Twenty Years Later,” went through three editions).
I don’t think that Sergei will easily agree with the statement that he is a bright and noticeable phenomenon of Russian photography at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, but he really became a guru, a mentor, a role model for more than one hundred young photographers in Russia and brought many of his people into the orbit of world photography students. Among them are Tatyana Plotnikova, Vlad Sokhin, Alexandra Demenkova, Alexey Bushov, Mikhail Domozhilov, Maria Pleshkova, Marina Makovetskaya, Alexey Melia, Sergey Karpov and others.
“My task is not just to teach people to take photographs, but to teach them to shoot on time and on a topic,” he says at the beginning of his course.
Sergei does not hide secrets: he shows the students the entire filmed flash drive and how he goes to the frame he needs. He always, or almost always, knows what he needs from a shoot. He is ready to post online information about himself, about any shot: with what camera, in what mode it was shot, how he agreed, who he contacted, and what happened. He is open to communication, full of irony and self-irony, witty and friendly.
This year, for the first time in many years, he celebrated his birthday—October 29—at home with his family. Sergei turned 50 years old, and congratulations came in an endless stream.
We didn’t have time to talk to him “live”, and since the editors insisted on material about Maksimishin, we talked on Skype, I used my voice recordings and Sergei’s recordings on the Facebook wall.
From Maksimishin: “I wanted to finish the book by the round number. For the anniversary, I wanted to make a large exhibition of students. I didn’t manage to do anything: since July 25th I haven’t spent the night at home for more than five days in a row. I didn’t have time - and to hell with him. If they call you, it means you need it. I’ll still have time to sum up the results.”
Three weeks before the anniversary on Facebook:
“I’ll write here to cut off the path to retreat. I finally pulled myself together, took out an old scanner from a dusty box that had been feeding me for a long, long time, and from the same box I took out a folder with negatives. I did this in order to finally start working on the book. The book I’m currently thinking about is this: with Andrei Polikanov and Artem Chernov, we crawled on the floor for two days and out of the 500 pictures I proposed, with the help of jokes, jokes, swear words, bickering, we more or less democratically chose 100 best photos Maksimishina. Now my task is to write about how these hundred photographs were taken, how they were chosen from, often, many options, how they were published, and what people, including on FB, said about them. Well, and something else, if you have something to say.
P.S. Artem made a movie about how we crawled on the floor and, swearing, chose pictures. In some places we had interesting arguments.”
An acute feeling of happiness for him is when there is a city he has never been to. He walks along the road and does not know where it will lead him: “I probably like traveling more than taking photographs. For me, the main thing is travel, adventure, new people and experiences.” Many people have an opinion similar to that of Natasha Sharapova, his student:
“I get the impression that all people live their boring lives just so that one day, when they see you with a camera, they put on all the brightest, cast beautiful shadows and line up in ideal compositions. How you find them is beyond comprehension!”
— Seryozha, what important and perhaps unexpected events have taken place over the last ten years of your life?
- More like fifteen. The most unexpected thing is that I became a photographer. If seventeen years ago someone had told me that I would be a photographer, I would never have believed it. I was not a businessman - I was a manager, an employee, quite successful employee with a good salary, a good suit, a beautiful secretary Nadya, a personal driver, an office in the center. I was quite successful, my family was used to a certain level comfort. And just like that, give up everything and go into tramps, like I left... If it weren’t for the default of ’98, I think I wouldn’t have had the strength. When the default happened, and the dollar was worth six rubles in the morning, and 26 in the evening, our business took a turn for the worse. When we think that the Lord is punishing us, he guides us. It was a chance, a wonderful chance, to drop everything and leave. I thought that if I didn’t leave now, I would sit in the office until I died, and I would have nothing to tell my grandchildren. I dropped everything and left. This was the first important event.
The second important event was Chechnya in 2000, where I met those people who were my teachers. This is Yura Kozyrev first of all. Then there was a meeting with you, and you hooked me on magazine photography, a meeting with Margot Klingsporn, director of the Focus agency, who helped me and did some very important things for me. Of course, this is World Press Photo, an exhibition in Perpignan. You know, life is so busy that at the end of the year I can hardly remember what happened at the beginning. There are events that happened recently, there are events that happened a long time ago. So, the events of the beginning of the year are in the “long ago” category.
My schedule has become tougher in a different way. If five years ago I photographed a lot, now there is little work for magazines, and I most I devote my time to educational matters. The schedule is quite tough sometimes. I sat on my butt all spring, and then, at the end of July, I left and continued traveling until the end of November, staying at home for several days at a time.
— What was interesting this year?
— Firstly, we graduated two great groups of Moscow students, and the St. Petersburg group was wonderful. Had a wonderful trip to Brazil. It was a corporate order for Coca Cola, but very interesting nonetheless. Was interesting job for Stern about Putin’s Russia, plus a trip with students to India. This was my eleventh time in India and I visit it every year.
— What does teaching mean to you? And what does India mean to you?
— Any photographer has two fundamental pleasures: the first is to show your photos, the second is to tell other people why their cards are crap. In teaching, both pleasures converge, and they also pay money for it (laughs). Teaching is wildly interesting to me. In addition, there are fewer orders, I definitely won’t photograph weddings, but I have to feed my family. Actually, this action is karmic. A Brahmin in India is obliged to teach whether he is paid or not. I know that the more I give, the more I will have. At the same time, I have no secrets. Although many people think that Maksimishin, the bitch, still won’t tell the most important thing. I don’t have a single secret, I’m ready to share everything I have.
— Can you tell me some funny story about yourself as a teacher?
— The main complaint against me: Maksimishin breeds his own kind. A sort of Maximishin-light. But the list of students that you provide in this publication is the best argument against this. The stories are different. For example, Pinkhasov tells his students that he is kind, but when Maximishin arrives, you will all be ruined! Recently, before a master class, the organizers asked me not to immediately tear the students apart, but to treat them carefully. That is, I have the image of some super-evil teacher. Well, you know that's not true, right?
- You can be different. Sometimes you are strict, sometimes you are kind…
— Do you still know what I like about being a teacher? When something comes out of nothing, solely from your will. There was nothing - and suddenly this... Probably, this is how a businessman rejoices when he wanted to build a bridge - and here it is a bridge. It’s the same in teaching. You take a person, and, thanks to your will, he does something, and something happens. Through drool, tears, swearing - suddenly it turns out something that a person can be proud of.
— Is teaching dictatorship or exchange?
— More like an exchange and a challenge. Especially on the road, when I have 15 not-so-bad photographers running around in the fields, I can’t afford to shoot worse. This is a big challenge. You know, the biggest horror for a photographer, especially a photographer with a name, is to hear: “Akela missed.” This challenge is a powerful motivator for every shoot. It's very hard to fight with yourself. As Garik Pinkhasov recently said, if you had a shoot that was successful, then quite subconsciously you strive to repeat this success. And this is a dead end. But you’re not a machine, you can’t come up with a new move for every shoot, and you have to constantly fight with your cliches. I can provide a magazine of any level by playing in class. But if a year has passed and I haven’t made a single picture that I myself thought was cool, new, interesting, then the year has passed in vain. Unfortunately, every year there are fewer and fewer such pictures. But maybe it’s because I work less, or maybe because I’ve already filmed a lot and done a lot. Taking a picture that would be new to me is not so easy.
— Do you feel like a great photographer, a bright phenomenon of our time?
- Well, look: the fact that I feel like a phenomenon, yes; that I am great is not. Time will show. But I think I took three or four pictures that I'm not ashamed of.
— Don’t you get tired of being quoted all the time, your lectures being torn apart?
- I like it... What haven’t I read about myself! It was a great joke about Maksimishin’s five steps. This is called the “Maksimishin rule”. This is very cool. I do find that some people don't feel the right distance to shoot from. And to some people I say, “Before you click, take two steps forward.” Some people believe that if they film a person from three meters away, they are less visible than from two meters away.
- But where did the five steps come from? I remember at some master class you advised - again, to some - if they have a wide-angle lens on their camera, take two steps forward, and if they have a long-angle lens, take two steps back. I had fun when I read about the five step rule. It was really about a specific situation, specific optics and specific people. And it became “Maksimishin’s rule.”
- Do you understand that five steps is almost five meters?
— Maksimishin is not great, but it is significant. Specify who is in your ranks?
— There are people next to whom I don’t feel stupid. So, I don’t feel unskillful towards any photographer. I'm not ashamed to show my photos to anyone.
- Let’s imagine, like in football: eleven photographers - and you’re one of them...
— If we talk about Russians, then at eleven I’ll get up, maybe as a reserve.
— We are talking about the famous list of eleven photographers that Afisha magazine cited several years ago...
“I think that list summed it up.” Today there would be a different list. There are many new young photographers who are incredibly talented. Moreover, they appeared in different places. For example, a Yakut girl who lives in America, Evgenia Arbugaeva, won the Leica Oskar Barnack Award a year ago. Elena Chernysheva, who received the World Press Photo Golden Eye this year. They are simply killer, and you realize that you have already been pushed a little. A new generation of photographers is emerging. They come out of some other places. There was an opportunity to study in the West. When I started, there was no Internet at all and we simply did not see photographs.
- And yet, why are you so eager to go to India? Magazines hardly take stories from India. I remember that in Ogonyok there was a taboo on stories from India.
- I feel good there. I heard somewhere the phrase: “The Russian sky is pressing.” I checked. You step off a plane in India and a feeling of serenity comes over you. Like a drug. Is it true. I usually travel to India in the winter, but this year I went in the fall. It turned out that I had not been there for a year and a half. I was simply physiologically drawn there. There is no place in the world where I would feel so good. I do not know why. Many people don't understand me. But why should we praise India...
— Which state of India do you like best?
“I’ve been to different ones, and I feel good everywhere.” It's best where there is a sea. But even where there is no sea, I feel good too.
-What is your biggest dream? Or a goal you are striving for?
- Someone told me that when you pass under a bridge, but goes to the bridge train, you need to make a wish. It always happens unexpectedly, you don’t have time to dig into yourself, and what’s closest pops up. I used to walk and think: I sent cards to World Press Photo, it would be nice to win; or I walked and thought: it would be nice to get this job; and now I think: if only it would be good for the children. That's fair. I don’t even send cards to the competition anymore, I’ve gotten over it, in fact, only basic dreams remain. So I think that it’s good for the children, that it’s good for the family.
—Where would you like to meet your old age?
- In India. And not because I feel bad in Russia, although now I feel bad in it.
But I was born in the south, I feel good when it’s light, when it’s warm, when there’s no winter. Because winter for me is a time that you need to grit your teeth through. Such a pause in life. Of course, when all the work is over, I would like to go somewhere warm.
— What do you think about modern journalism?
- She is in progress, she is on her way. Because the old form of both financing journalism and presenting it, that is, packaging it like, for example, a magazine, has practically died, and a new one is still being born. We'll see. It seems to me that the essence will not change. Because journalism is when some people tell other people about how other people live. The main event that is happening in journalism is its departure to the Internet. The move of journalism to the Internet presupposes direct contact between the journalist and the reader. No editors, photo editors, magazine. And in this sense, the experience of Ksyusha Diodorova seems very important to me. This is working directly with the reader. No intermediaries at all.
Then the reader acts not only as a recipient of information, but also as a direct payer for it. It seems to me that this is the journalism of the future—going directly to the reader. A lot of journalistic people have their own blogs, and reading them is a hundred times more interesting than the same journalists in the newspaper. On the blog they write what they think and do not look back at the editors, editorial policy, or censorship. Journalism becomes direct, the intermediary between the journalist and the reader disappears. Naturally, photojournalism is changing too. She also changes the usual packaging. The photograph came packaged in a magazine, and no magazine showed more than 12 pictures. And now 12 pictures on the Internet look bad.
The stories became more detailed. Naturally, since they are more detailed, the requirement for each card changes. We no longer have to tell everything in one card. We will give three, each of which will tell a little bit. Form changes content, just as content changes form. How were we taught before? Every journalistic photo should tell the story of what happened, where it happened and when it happened. Now we don’t need to do this, all our readers are within the context. We are absolutely under no obligation to pretend that the reader is an idiot from Mars. Therefore, there is no need to show “what? Where? and when?”, because people already know about it from TV. Perhaps we need to pay more attention to the “why?”
Conveying emotions and sensations. In this sense, Pelegrin’s series is indicative when he films people looking at the windows of the Pope. Classically, it should have shown the dying dad, and then people looking at him. We stand on the shoulders of television, which created the information context, and we are inside it. Do you remember there were such coloring books: outlines were offered, and they had to be colored? Previously, we both drew the outline and painted it. Now the outline has already been drawn for us. Our business is coloring. But the more demands are placed on her. Man has become smarter, more complex and more informed.
- But also more superficial?
“I think a journalist will find a reader of any degree of “superficiality.” Let's see. The future is approaching so quickly and everything is changing so quickly that it becomes impossible to predict anything.
— Whose work do you constantly follow?
— Firstly, for our students. Secondly, there are several famous names, I don’t want to name them, whose work interests me, and I try to keep track of what they are doing.
— What do you like to shoot? What excites you most?
- Let's go back to India again. Some people travel to distant countries in search of ethnicity, in search of what has been lost. For example, a photographer and I are traveling around India. We came to the city of Vrindavan. Krishna was born there. And there flows the Jamuna River, as sacred as the Ganges. Crossing, boats filled with hundreds of pilgrims. The beauty is unimaginable. And in the middle of the river there are disgusting pillars sticking out. Apparently, they were going to make a bridge, but it didn’t work out; all that was left of the bridge were concrete supports with branches of reinforcement. These pillars are in all my frames.
It's important for me. This is a civilizational junction. Ethnics don't really interest me. I am interested in the refraction of ethnicity in today's day. Just like my story from Kenya about iron giraffes. Another photographer does not have these supports in any frame; he deliberately turns his back to them. He is looking for that India that no longer exists. The present is much more interesting to me than the wedding in Malinovka than what happened. I never want to turn my back on concrete pillars. I'm going to go to Mongolia and I'm not going to leave Ulaanbaatar.
For me, Ulaanbaatar is a place where civilization and time meet. Old Mongolian civilization, some Soviet civilization, new Western trends. It’s this civilizational mix that interests me most. I definitely won’t go across the steppe to look for nomads in yurts.
I'm interested in the present. I like our time and I like filming our time. I was once asked, what is Time for me? It seems to me that, just as a housewife rolls tomatoes into jars, we roll up time into jars. It seems to me that any photograph of us is valuable because of how interesting it will be to look at in 50 years. This is our mission.
— Photography as a way of packaging time?
- Yes, a way to conserve time. What is more interesting: looking at photographs of Rodchenko or Family album the same time? I find it more interesting to look at a family album. Rodchenko is a cool guy, he failed at everything because he didn’t have a wide-angle. But I won’t look at it often, but I would watch and watch the family album. Because I’m wondering what the buttons were, what the looks were, what the bows were, what the shoes were...
- Maksimishin is forty years old and Maksimishin is fifty years old - can you compare them?
— I had significantly more hair on my head and more desires.
— What illusions have you given up over these ten years?
- I really wanted fame. I really wanted to be great. Win competitions, prove everything to everyone. Now, of course, I have calmed down a lot. You know the great joke about how a Georgian was asked when he lived better: under Khrushchev, Brezhnev or Gorbachev? He replied: “Under Khrushchev.” They asked: “Why?” - “The potency was very good!”
— If you were filming a story about yourself, what would you tell about Seryozha Maksimishin?
- Small, bald, bearded. Lives in St. Petersburg. He has two cats, one dog, two children and one wife. Works as a photographer. Sometimes he teaches students. This is what I would film about.
From Maksimishin:
“In the town of ACCIs (one hundred thousand population and 570 km from Sao Paulo) there are two schools of classical ballet. The Royal Ballet Academy is closed until Monday - holidays, and I rented classes at the Petrushka school (locals say "PetruSka"). Then I went to the center for the rescue of animals found under the augers of a sugar cane harvesting machine. There he stroked a Brazilian maned wolf and a puma without a tail, and then, like an Aztec god, he walked with two jaguars in his bosom. The jaguars were found a week ago, they were three months old, I gave them milk from a bottle, and they bit my hands. Being a photographer is sometimes hard, but it’s still better than working.”
« The Association of Jewish Students invites you to talk about photo cards. I would send the Association of Russian Students without hesitation. I won't go to these either. For reasons of symmetry."
“Once again, there’s a fight on LiveJournal about how to shoot: RAW or JPG. Once again, someone says that Maksimishin himself films in a jeep and forces students to film like that. Official statement: you need to shoot in RAW. I shoot in JPEG exclusively and only out of laziness.”
“When I was not yet a photographer, I really loved looking at other people’s good photographs. Some were breathtaking. Literally. Then I became a bad viewer. It’s no longer easy to “punch” me with photography—I’ve seen too much. Yesterday I was riding in the Sapsan, watching the long-awaited book by Alexei Melius, and it was like before: it was breathtaking. Literally."
“About personal life. A letter has just arrived: Mitka has entered (two rounds of exams and an interview) into Ecole Polytechnic. He will finish his studies in Paris. If all goes well."
“The fact that you first need to do something you like, and only then think about how to earn money.”It only dawned on me when I was 35 years old to give back the money. A simple but effective recipe for personal happinesslife."
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