Photo Review: Alexander Abaza – Photographer and Man

In photography he was always attracted by emotion, drawing, lines, graphics, artistic tricks. Abaza’s photographs were full of air, light and inimitable style, even though he shot the usual newspaper stories of his time: construction sites, plants, factories, parades, etc.

Alexander Abaza. Photo: A. Zemlyanichenko

Olympic buses. New York. 1980, July. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Alexander Zemlyanichenko

I first met Sasha Abaza when I joined “Komsomolskaya” in 1980, but I knew about his work for a long time. He was somehow different from many, and, of course, his unusualness caught my eye, even his peculiar gait. Sasha told me that he did gymnastics in his youth, and really, I don’t remember him bending over. Sasha always walked steadily, but it never felt any pride.

Working together on “Komsomolka” staff we often stayed up late into the night, sometimes past midnight. It was very pleasant and interesting for me to watch how Sasha worked, how he selected material, how he framed his photographs in print, how he worked so hard on each frame, perfecting the composition. Many of Sasha’s photographs were very graphic in style and easily fit into a newspaper page, being easily readable and artistic at the same time. Sasha almost always made an agreement with the layout designers not to cut the picture, but, adjusting it to the newspaper page, to preserve it the way he, Abaza, saw it.

Sasha was always ready to help and took my advice himself when we discussed a particular photo. When reminiscing about those years with Seryozha Kuznetsov, we called the time we spent together with Sasha “the school of Abaza”, which gave a good impetus to our own work.

Criticizing others was something he did not like, he just avoided it, finding the right words so as not to offend a colleague. Sasha seemed to be doing a lot of things slowly. As Zhenya Uspensky now deceased , a colleague of ours from Komsomolka, used to call it with a warm humor, Sasha worked at a speed of “one Abaza per hour. But this was the speed of dignity and honor, the so-called “Abaza quality. There was no other way for Sasha, even if it was the most banal photograph. His aestheticism in his work as a photographer was infectious. Sasha stood out quite naturally, it was not for show. And it was a great school for me.

Sasha was free in his creative work, even working for a daily newspaper, and for this he was valued by many as a professional.

When I left “Komsomolka” in the magazine “Soviet Union”, I now have the opportunity from time to time to go with Sasha on business trips on request of our editorial offices . And that was just great, those were his master classes, as they call it now, for me. Day after day we worked with full dedication, competing in pitching ideas. I remember, we were with Sasha on BAM so called the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway . Sasha introduced me to his construction workers, who were already familiar to him, and we started living together with these people. It was not just a shooting, we were just together with these great guys, filming them while they work, share their leisure time and work again. I saw how warm these people were to Sasha, and therefore to me, it was just great!

I remember how, when my wife was in the maternity hospital, and I decided to glue new wallpaper, Sasha said: “I’ll help,” and came over to help me. Of course we drank, my son was born, but the job was done somehow easily, without the slightest strain. And when my wife’s mother died, Sasha said that his wife Zoya Zosya, as Sasha called her would come and help me. Sasha and Zoya were close to each other. Of course, the photographers had no time to visit each other often, but still, occasionally Larisa and I would go to Sasha’s house, and Sasha and Zoya would come to us.

I catch myself that I’m writing everything in the past tense… Yes, time – it flies. It flies by simply and quickly, but human memory, fortunately for us humans, keeps everything that happened to us, the wonderful people who were there, who cannot be forgotten. I feel a lump in my throat… I will never forget the way Sasha used to introduce himself on the phone: “Sasha, this is Sasha Abaza,” though it was impossible not to recognize his voice… And one more phrase that I like very much, which was said one day far after midnight, when we were late at work, when I was about to leave and was already preparing to say goodbye: “Sasha! it was Sasha talking to me And to talk?”and, of course, we sat talking about our profession and our favorite photography for a long time to come.

Shortly after Sasha’s funeral, I was shooting a fashion show in New York. Sitting beside Dima, Sasha’s son. He reminds me a lot of Sasha, although externally it is difficult to say who he looks like more: Sasha or Zoya, and whether it really matters, Abaza, then goes on!

Vladimir Bogdanov

Sasha was handsome in every way!

This year marks exactly the 40th anniversary of my acquaintance with Sasha Abaza. Gradually, this acquaintance of many years grew into a close friendship that I cherished and still cherish today.

I recall a few episodes that speak eloquently of what a friend Abaza was, and just a beautiful man all in all.

I don’t remember exactly what year this New Year’s story happened..

December 31st. My favorite of all holidays. And then there were family problems to put it mildly , problems at work… I was in a murderous mood. I am sitting at home alone, not wanted, and from pity for myself, my beloved, I almost cry. Suddenly the phone – Abaza calls, congratulating on the holiday, realizes that I am not in the New Year’s mood, and orders the exact word is impossible to choose to spit on everything, quickly get ready and go to him. The New Year was only minutes away, and I had to take the subway from Chistye Prudy to Yugo-Zapadnaya, and I had to change by bus. At exactly midnight the train stops, the driver congratulates his passengers on the New Year, and we drive on.

In the end, I got there. Sasha family: wife Zoya, son Dimka, daughter Mashenka and foxy Kuzya – I met so warmly that I immediately forgot my hopeless melancholy. And the good mood did not leave me on this Abaza-given New Year’s Eve.

Let me repeat: Sasha was handsome in every way. I could unmistakably see the breed in him and was always struck by his innate aristocratism. I remember the first time he came to my house. I don’t know where we got this Asian habit of taking off our shoes in the hallway when we came to visit. Women, as a rule, brought their dancing shoes, while the men, being “in full dress,” wore the master’s slippers or stayed in just socks. That’s how we danced, if it came to dancing at parties.

On his first visit I had prepared slippers for him, but luckily Zoya managed to warn me that Sasha never took his shoes off when he came to visit. And the hospitable hosts of their parquet floors and carpets had to generously forgive Abaza his “sin.

And Sasha was as trusting as a little kid. This quality is often well characterized by adults.

I once dropped in on Abaza in “Komsomolka”. He had an urgent need to develop the film, so we locked ourselves in a booth. And while the light was on, I automatically read some headline from “Ogonyok”, which was open on the magnifier. Then Sasha turned off the light in order to load the film into the tank and I also mechanically said aloud what I had read in the light. Later, when all the manipulations with the film in the dark room were over, Sasha turned on the light again and I showed him this headline in Ogonyok. I think he was convinced until the very last that I could read in total darkness.

I became especially close to Sasha in the last year. Our misfortunes made us even closer. Sasha buried his beloved wife and bore the loss very badly. He and I were both in poor health, but we both tried to keep ourselves busy as much as possible, attending and even taking part in exhibitions.

And this is the last picture of us together at one of the exhibitions at the gallery in St. Petersburg. of the Lumière brothers.

Natalia Udartseva

The twentieth century takes its heroes.

In March, Alexander Borisovich Abaza, a wonderful, bright man and photojournalist, quietly passed away.

He was born in Leningrad in 1934. After his mother’s death he was taken in 1942 from besieged Leningrad to the village of Gagino in the Gorki region. In 1948 he moved to Riga with his aunt who raised him. He graduated from Riga Polytechnic School, served four years in the Navy, worked as a design engineer at the Riga Electromechanical Plant and as a freelance photo correspondent for Sovetskaya Latvija and Sovetskaya Molodezhda newspapers. I took part in the annual exhibitions of the “Riga” people’s photo studio. I got the third degree diploma for the picture “River Necklace”.

In 1969 Abaza moved to New York and began working at the Sovetskaya Kultura newspaper, filming cultural figures and reporting on important cultural events. In the New York photographic community, he has gained the unofficial status of an intellectual photographer.

Two years later he was invited to work at Komsomolskaya Pravda, where he would remain for a quarter of a century, until 1996.

In photography he was always attracted by emotion, drawing, lines, graphics, artistic tricks. Abaza’s works “fell out” of the general series of Soviet photographs: they were filled with air and light, inimitable style, although he shot the usual subjects for the newspaper journalists of his time: construction sites, plants, factories, parades.

Vladimir Levashov, a photography historian, wrote in his review of Abaza’s exhibition: “Alexander Abaza’s photos often look as if you have known them since childhood. Even if you have never seen. There is something archetypical about them, some kind of continuous formula of style. Tearfully nostalgic, whose romance comes from the bright 60s, even if the specific images emerged decades later. Abaza’s professional career began in those years, with work for the Riga newspapers “Soviet Latvia” and “Soviet Youth. And the stamp of the epoch’s style has remained in his photos forever.

In 2001, Alexander Abaza won the Grand Prix at the Silver Camera contest category Architecture . In 2005 his personal exhibition took place at the New York House of Photography as part of the “Classics of American Photography” program.

In recent years, he tried not to miss any significant photographic event in New York. I often saw him at exhibitions, as I knew his photos from my childhood. He was kind to me and always responded to my requests. Gave a book of his photos. But I didn’t have time to interview him. All postponed. It seemed to me that he would always be

We thank Dmitry Abaza, who prepared and provided photos of Alexander Abaza for the publication

Gymnasts. 1980 Olympics. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Novo-Lipetsky Metallurgical Plant. 1973 . Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Striving to the sky. March 1994. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Alexander Abaza and Vladimir Bogdanov. 2010 g.

“The Bird.”. Cable-braced bridge tower. Riga 1992. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Luis Corvalan on the New York ground. New York, Vnukovo-2. December 1976. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Construction of Azovstal plant. Zhdanov. March 1973. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Rails of Azovstal. 1972. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Boom of a walking excavator. Severny mine, Turgayskoye ore administration. Kazakh SSR. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Gymnasts Olga Korbut, Lyubov Burda, Elvira Saadi and Lyubov Bogdanova. 1973. Photo: Alexander Abaza.

Ornament. 1993g. Photo: Alexander Abaza.