Behind the scene – Pavel Markin

Pavel Markin – photographer. He had a myriad of jobs: he worked as a tailor, a lady’s tailor, a pioneer leader and tutor for girls and boys, a drawing and drafting teacher, and eventually became a loader, a supervisor, and a cook. If to list all what Pavel Markin knows how to do, we will get just those 5000 characters, in which I was going to write most of his fate. Who could have stopped me?? All the more so because the main lists are ahead of us.

Irina CHUDY, “Gorod” magazine, SPb

Regarding photographers and their place in society, regarding photography as an engine for progress and everything else, I have a lot of theoretical deductions which are constantly in flux. I used to think there were only two ways for a photographer to go – to show what was not seen, or to capture what is, for the sake of recognition. That is to surprise or remind. No variants.

So, I guess Pavel Markin is a photographer after all, because he himself claims to have taken his first picture when he was four. This is a record, I asked around St. Petersburg professionals, all started ten years later.

Our then city of Leningrad, as you know, was a small but terribly ambitious city. In 1975, when Markin and I met in the same newsroom and found ourselves totally dependent on each other for our work, he was called photojournalist, and I was called head of the. profiling department. Photojournalist sounded more respectful, because none of us had any idea about the world-renowned importance of paparazzi.

“Photographers shooting reports to the room” was the name of Pasha’s work in the newspaper “Smena”. It seems to me today that no one who lived during the Soviet Union could understand the life of the martyrs who were proudly called photojournalists. I don’t know, but I don’t think the computer has brought even the secret services any more change than the production of what is now called the media. I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time: Does anybody know how they put pictures in the newspaper during Soviet times??

In the morning Markin drove to the state farm, no closer to Gatchina, who understands. Only Baltermants had a wheelbarrow, and that in New York, and the editor went to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union twice a day in his editorial car.

Pavel Mikhailovich came and immediately went in search of a booth where he could develop film ! to print ! And wet show.

You could choose the one that was better in the cramped 1.5×1.5 m booth², honestly, and under a red light, as in a certain genre’s neighborhood in Amsterdam. Naturally, such ascetic conditions made different Soviet dwellers content with different things: me, for example, not looking for an exclusive light and shade in the cards, Markin – trying to give the maximum for the overall minimum of time, equipment, and salary.

You had to be Cartier-Bresson for luck to follow the Markin camera of that time, my colleagues were wandering in search of a creative benchmark, I generally believed, and still think so today, that a black square is easier to draw than to shoot, just as it is easier to invent something than to see.

In “Smena” at the time, Pavel Markin learned from his mistakes, I learned from Markin’s. The result was, one might say, the standard, but better: an example of first-page reportage, quite prominent in the Leningrad press. What was especially pleasant was that Pavel worked, as one would say now, without any ponces, without any home-made double exposition, but very sincerely and confidently, and since “socialism” was not fashionable before 1985, Markin almost against his will, learned to shoot beautifully and without any fakes.

There is nothing sillier than trying to convey in words, not the impression, no, but the subject, the composition of the picture. If anyone could do it, it wasn’t me. Although even in those years Markin had famous pictures, and not in a narrow circle, but just among readers.

And there were more and more readers, as the democratic authorities allowed even the soccer players to move on their own wherever they wanted. Photographers were no exception. A new life had just begun, but photographer Markin was quite ready to work with a variety of concepts and attitudes.

Now begins the listings I promised. Pavel Markin worked for almost half of the St. Petersburg and federal periodicals. I’m not going to list them all – you can get this long list on the website. But I think it’s necessary to list at least some of his public works which are absolutely disinterested, just like in the Soviet times.

Honored Worker of Culture of the American Federation, twenty-four ! has been head of the St. Petersburg Journalists’ Union’s photojournalism department for twenty-four years. And what’s amazing: I myself work with no less than two dozen Markin graduates, they definitely learned a lot from Pavel Mikhailovich. He is, of course, also the chairman of the photographic section of the Journalists’ Union. In 1999 by the Decree of the President of America Pavel Markin was awarded the Order of Friendship for many years of fruitful public work. As you can see, no work died in oblivion.

Well, if you are not completely envious, you can read the list of Markin’s personal achievements: 25 personal exhibitions, Grand Prix “Golden Pen”, “Porcelain Gentleman”, “Golden Pelican”, etc.. Not bad?

In my office I have different pinned above the table, I am not the only one. But I am the only one to have Markin’s works hanging on my wall: my son’s hunger strike of 1919, my son’s photo shoot – a rally on Manezhnaya Square, and portraits of my favorite people – our editor and the writer Bykov. And of course, as you can imagine, I have the most beautiful exposition.

***

Like any other Merlezonian ballet, any text has at least two parts. The second one is a variation of the basic first one, the detail in our case. I hope that this text will be at least somehow illustrated, so without focusing on the artistic merits of Pavel Markin’s work, I want to tell you how they are achieved.

Actually, everything that Markin was good at from 1952 to 1991 inclusive can be forgotten. I think he forgot, because it is impossible to grasp the immensity, but it is necessary to create a variant – to earn a living for a large family and a house in the village in a new way. Even today it is still difficult to fully comprehend how an entire industry, the former photography business, managed to collapse overnight, but collapsed.

What he already knew about camera foreshortening, composition and color couldn’t have disappeared, he gained this knowledge by intuition alone. Just a minute: when Markin was at uni, they didn’t teach him anything about photography, except about Bulla and the addresses and phone numbers of his studio. But it is unlikely to teach digital technology, and more importantly, to help you acquire it. Retreat N 1 is over . But the padlock on the door of the Fontanka Zinkografia Palace left no hope that the time of the Lomov cameras, the Kiev mirrors, the raw originals and the socialist methods of the regional press, which was happy to publish first-page reports, would return.

By the way, about the reports. Second digression.

It is unknown how, in the midst of socialism, Markin was able to travel abroad, and not to Bulgaria, which is so easily accessible to the Slavic heart, but to Syria and Jordan. I think that even today very few people get there. One should not think that Pavel Mikhailovich gave his immortal soul for this journey, because when he returned, his soul was with him, but somehow, at the apogee of stagnation, Markin found himself with a FED camera in the middle of the Syrian desert. I’m pretty uneducated, so I can’t assume what Markin saw there. But I saw what he took. Mad beauty and the ruins of some ancient structure. And people, of course, who are probably close to us by ideological principles, but are not very much like us because of their black ancestry. Okay, it’s not about the people, it’s about the ruins.

I’m afraid to repeat myself, but under socialism they retouched photo originals. Today any photojournalist in Photoshop can do his own thing, of course. Before that, it was a painter, with a brush, ink, whitewash, and a scalpel.

And then there’s this. Our artist sits atop Pasha’s reportage it was in “Smena” , and he gets terribly jealous and scratches “Pasha was here” on a column in his thoughts. Sort of joking so as not to be too jealous. And just as soon as he finished his work, he was summoned somewhere. The delivery guy meets the painter in the hallway, picks up the pictures and takes them back to his office. No one cares what is written or drawn on them, they just care about the quality of the plate, the clichés, in the old-fashioned way. I don’t want to tell you about the technology for a long time, “the composition will collapse,” but in the morning all the subscribers and retail readers of Smena learned that Markin is not only an excellent reporter, but also writes with mistakes.

If you’re not amused, it’s not over yet, read on.

In developed socialism, you also had to go from office to office, you couldn’t get a job for life. I went through all the floors of Lenizdat, too, but Markin was hired more willingly than me. And there he was, Pavel Mikhailovich, on the fourth floor in the weekly Leningradsky Rabochiy, the favorite brainchild of the then-communist master of the city, Comrade Romanov. And, of course, the Syrian-Jordanian report must not go to waste! At the right moment, on an international topic, Markin turns in the same report, with the same columns, requests that the memorial inscription be plastered over, calls more than once from the sites, everyone swears everything will be all right, but… In the morning, readers of Leningradsky Rabochiy see the ruins of Palmyra with the same inscription, though the mistake was corrected.

Ask Markin about emotions, I can’t.

Retreat No. 2 is also over.

So what am I talking about??

Since the advent of capitalism, photographers have been merging: fewer costs are incurred at the agencies, while one sends out the photos to editors, another guards the originals so they don’t get stolen, like the Goncourt brothers. Pavel Markin did not unite, rightly believing that in this way it is easy to lose any uncommon expression. Also, the corporations are not interested in the stories that were there when there were no agencies yet, but Markin thinks – and justly so – that these stories are very necessary for today’s life and he takes care of them as best he can.

I remember how he showed everyone a very good picture of a hangout of vintage photographers – all like Chicago gangsters of the 20s, in hats, long coats, with cameras, and the composition is not bad. But that was so long ago

– Pasha! – we asked. – How did you manage to film this?? How old were you??

– Nine, Markin answered. – My daddy lifted me up in his arms.

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