Photographer Alexander Juice: I wanted to shoot a fighter plane at sunset, at an altitude of 9 thousand meters…

The dark carcass of a bomber plane presses the concrete slabs of an airfield with its entire mass. It seems they should spring and then throw this huge fortress into the sky. But nothing happens. We approach the shot and see: there’s not an iron bird in front of us, but a mass of people. Caps on them, cockades on their caps. Focus and focus on faces. An unusual formation with “flyers”: pilots, navigators, flight attendants – those “who teach the planes to fly, who teach their fear to win…”. And only those whose work is all in the air. These are military pilots, and their work is always a challenge… It’s a collective portrait. “Aviation is people,” the author calls his photo, putting a sacred meaning into the symbolic image.

Alexander Juice

When I saw the picture on the cover of the magazine, I started looking for the name of the author. Who, by showing this one shot, could immediately put their name on a list of those that are never forgotten? It was easy to remember a phrase as brief as a formula: Alexander Juice. It didn’t even matter if the picture was good or not, what was the meaning behind it, or if it reached its goal. I knew what was behind the picture. It’s all about fanatical stubbornness. How much it took to convince serious people who were not inclined to creative illusions that the photographer’s intention was not a whim or artistic paranoia, but a serious effort to immortalize worthy people in a dignified manner?

Such a picture could not have come from a man of chance in photography and aviation. And I wasn’t mistaken. Later I learned that it took a photo reporter how many years and four attempts to realize his “idea”. This is just to create this particular picture. And how much time and effort it took to become a “flying” reporter and photographer in general? Well, let’s look back at the years leading up to the emergence of iconic photography.

– I was born in Khabarovsk, in the family of a serviceman. My father Mikhail Timofeyevich served in the communications regiment of the aviation army staff, was a captain.

– Captain Juice. Sounds romantic. Something from Greene and Jules Verne. What overseas shores did the name come from??

– I’ve been searching for the origins of my own kind. I didn’t learn too much. Once upon a time, there was a whole village of Juice in the Ukraine. There are villages where all families have two or three or even one surname. In the hungry twenties, almost the entire village moved to the east, to Kazakhstan. And someone made it to Transbaikalia. Timothy Juice, the grandfather, went to work in the mines. I do not know the details, but he never went back.

Alexander had the intention of supporting his father’s dream of a military career for his son. Continuer is always a pleasure for my father. True, my son dreamed not of the insignia of a signalman on the epaulettes, but of a flying overalls. And of course a fighter jet. It’s something real and big. You could put your whole life on it. But… The combination of these two letters often changes our intentions, and sometimes our whole life. In high school, a teenager developed a little nearsightedness. Conscription. You can serve, but you can’t fly. Emergency service. Liaison officer, like my father. It turns out that not only the spoken word, but also the unspoken wishes of a father are not an empty sound in space.

– My father, of course, wanted me to continue his work, to become a radio amateur, but I did not persist. And we choose our roads.

On his tenth birthday my father gave his son a camera. It was “Change-2.”. “Uh-oh!..I guess the only thing the master of photography could say: “I’ve tried half, if not all, of all the cameras that existed. “Ooh-ooh” could mean “cool” in relation to the camera and those times. The camera and the process of making photos pleased the boy so much that he marked the beginning of his career with this date.

But the army is a serious thing. Young Juice the communicator got to serve in the missile forces. It wasn’t just for having a camera let alone using one , it was for saying the word “photograph” that you got a stern and convincing look. A missile shield must itself be protected from any leakage of information about it, much less a photographic one. At parades, though, we did see tractors dragging something very large and formidable behind them. Well, enough about that..

Back in Kurgan, Sasha went to the Rabkor School, which was attached to the Sovetskoye Zauralye newspaper. But they taught us to write, not to shoot. It wasn’t interesting. After demobilization, the young man went to a local photo studio, because the newspapers of Chita – and there were three of them: Party, Komsomol and military district – did not need the services of a young enthusiast. The atelier was interesting already for the fact that here they were shooting with color. In the early 70s, when all this was taking place, mastering color photography for New York photographers was long past its sell-by date. We were shooting everything not only on negative, but also on transparencies as well.

But back to the Chita domestic studio. There were lights, so you could learn how to work with light, and also a camera, a huge box on wheels. I had to do a lot of manipulations with it in order to get the birdie to fly out. Strange as it may seem, the young photographer liked it. Then he somehow figured out that to make a picture with a Lingof camera – a wide-format camera with a removable frosted glass pane – you have to make 17 operations. While you’re fiddling with the camera, the client slips unobtrusively into the role.

Who? Of myself! He calms down, balances out, collects himself internally. No one’s pressuring him, photographer’s got his own thing going on. Great! “It’s important to me that a man remain himself.” And what is this? “There was a period when we imposed our vision on the client: you have to be like this, and no others.”

Of course, besides the “box,” Juice didn’t forget the “boxes” either. He had a lot of them in his hands: “Kievs”, various “Amateurs” – two-lens mine cameras, stereo cameras, and some quite exotic, highly specialized cameras – the “Leningrad” with a spring plant for 10-12 shots of broaching. Somehow I saw a thick book called “Soviet Cameras.”. Judging by the thickness of the tome, many hundreds of cameras were described. And the practice, even the smallest one, hardly included a dozen or two. I can’t say how many of them were familiar to Juice, but the fact that he would approach the selection of his “tools” all his life with such a serious and responsible attitude surprises me even now.

There were no vacant spots in the editorial offices of local newspapers, which Alexander looked at and sometimes even visited. And the desire to break free from under the roof of the studio was growing. And then it drove: a photographer was leaving the county newspaper. Djus is offered a job as a photo correspondent of the newspaper “At Battle Post” in the Zabaikalsky Military District. The district stretched from Irkutsk to Blagoveshensk to the east, and from north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the southern borders of Mongolia. The territory is wide, but the specialty is narrow.

The army is all about discipline and regulations. Walk in formation, think by the book. I had the impression that all the shooting for a military newspaper was just an illustration of the rules, the way they should be, and not the way they are in reality.

– There was an air army in the area, but only one regiment was allowed to shoot for various reasons. Once I shot awarding of parachutists, which was held by deputy commander of the 23rd air army major-general Igor Dmitriev. Dmitriev was a member of military council of the district. seizing the moment, I asked the general: “So and so, I want to fly. As a photojournalist. He smiled: we will speak later. I received permission from him, though, as I understand, Dmitriev went for a little deviation from the rules. Only the aviation commander could give me legal permission to fly..

In order to get the reporter in the air, he had to learn the basics of aircraft control and practice on the simulators. He should have been able to “handle himself” if, for example, he needed to eject in an emergency. Besides I had to make two test parachute jumps. But the pilots shook their hands at it: “Go on, let’s record it”.

And here was the first flight on the fighter-trainer. What that makes the average reporter feel – I don’t know, I haven’t experienced it, but for Juice it may have equated to a baptism: his dream of flying materialized. The first flight took place at the Ukurey airfield, in twilight, with minimal weather. A fighter pilot had been on his way to such a solo flight for 5-6 years.

– I wanted to take a picture of MiG-25 fighter at sunset, at an altitude of 9 thousand meters. We took the runway. Takeoff. Ahead of us comes the plane that we will photograph… Altitude: 1,200 meters. The command from below: “Permission to turn around.”. And that’s where it begins. The fighter’s roll is formed very quickly. The turn of a knob and you’re on your side. My first thought was, I’m gonna fall out. And where? Lantern, you’re strapped in. Flight Director Gives Permission to Dial 9000. It’s easy, too: Pull the handle, afterburner. Everything’s happening so fast and so fast, it’s a little scary. We gathered altitude, joined the leader. I shot it in horizontal flight – boring. “Let’s take it off on a turn!” – “Come on!” On the ground the airplane is chicken chicken, but in the counter sunlight it’s rocket! We shot . There’s not much fuel left. Descent. Sharp. The lower we go, the blacker and blacker it gets. We saw the runway at about 200 meters. Sat down..

– And you could fly the plane yourself? Fast, combat?!.

– I just had to know how, or I wouldn’t have gotten on board.

– And he did?

– A little bit… Like bringing a plane in for a landing. But I was not the one who performed the landing..

On one of the exercises the Commander-in-Chief and a photo reporter got in the line of sight… Jus addressed the marshal as a good acquaintance, using his first name and patronymic: “Pavel Stepanovich…”. He also replied, in his own way: “Not now, come to my office sometime. Big people are cordial and … “naive”. It took Juice a year to get into the office of the Deputy Minister of Defense, Air Chief Marshal Kutakhov. And he was just as good at it as he was at shooting the flights.

Karl Marx once said: “An idea becomes a material force when it takes hold of the masses.”. I don’t think this was a consideration Juice had in mind when the idea of building an airplane out of people entered his “mass. Also an idea! This doesn’t make any sense. Maybe the ophthalmologists could also be lined up in the shape of an eye, and the vegetable growers in the shape of a radish?.. It’s much easier for artists, but for a photographer, in order to make a crazy idea come true, you have to “break” a bunch of people, make them believe in it just as much as you believe in yourself. In short, the idea must seize the masses at least to the extent necessary for the picture . Juice’s idea had been brewing for several years, and only came to fruition on the fourth attempt.

– I wanted to express photographically the idea that aviation is first and foremost about people. I decided to show these people in an unusual formation – in the form of an airplane. The first attempt was in Kubinka in 1985. Fit the MiG-29, outlined the outline. The flight crew was invited, I wanted to have in the picture only those whose work is done completely in the air. That’s pilots, navigators, flight attendants… But people were enough to just outline. 1986 was a failure for me.

A helicopter was taking off. In order to let him through, I stepped back to the edge of the runway, noticing the ice that had fallen out. I slipped and, saving my cameras, fell so awkwardly that I tore a ligament in my leg. While I was being treated, flying was out of the question. But as soon as I got back “into action”, I made a new attempt to build my “plane.

It was near Irkutsk, in Belaya. There was a regiment of long-range aviation Tu-22. There weren’t enough men again. I tried it in Semipalatinsk, where a two-regiment division was based. One day I flew to Uzin, in Ukraine, near Bila Tserkva, on quite a different business. There was already a three-regiment division stationed there. “Let’s try it?”, – I asked. They came my way. They rolled out the airplane again, a Tu-95, outlined the contour, lined up the guys, and I took the picture. I didn’t bring a wide camera on that trip, so I had to make do with a narrow one… The only people on the photo are the aviators. If I had put non-flying, ground service too, it wouldn’t have mattered for the photo. But I would have been embarrassed in front of the pilots..

This kind of sensitivity puts me on the spot. Is separation justified, is it really necessary from every point of view?? But for Juice, it’s not an issue.

Is the case of this shot exceptional?? In part, yes. Not everyone has the conviction to invent and then create something that does not exist in reality. Isn’t life itself enough – circumstances unfolding on their own? Quite.

But all my protagonists in this and previous books who occupy prominent places in photography have one thing in common, which can be described as lack of energy, persistence, dissatisfaction with what has been done, the desire to break out of the ordinary, to dream and as a result – unconsciously, to find my own place in Photography. And at the heart of it all lies the joy one gets from the process of creating, inventing, and searching. Find an image, a metaphor in a photograph that hasn’t yet been used. Juice’s “Airplane” gravitates toward the metaphorical order of “Tchaikovsky” by Dmitry Baltermants, his “Grief” and “The Duel” by Vsevolod Tarasevich..

Juice, having shot what he was interested in in military aviation, came to the conclusion that if you really want something, you can achieve it. Now he wanted to see New York from a bird’s eye view.

They didn’t photograph the capital from the air very often. To get such permission was a troublesome and almost always a one-time thing – for a flight or two. Five or six reporters showed me a view of the capital from above. I remember Rakhmanov with his “night galaxy”, Steshanov photographed the Kremlin for Izvestiya at the time of the almighty Adjubey. Peskov, when preparing 50 bird’s-eye portraits of the homeland. And here is Juice.

Sasha showed me a unique album: New York – and everything from above. Here’s the Kremlin, its triangle inscribed in the recognizable outline of the center, and here’s the whole of New York in one shot. From a height of two kilometers, the “fish-eye” covers the whole thing. “Planet New York. Looks like . “Fisheye” is so skewed on the horizon, everything becomes a “planet.”. It’s funny: the whole of New York fits into a single frame. So it’s not so endless.

The Book Chamber helped to get permission for long surveys of New York from the air: it was going to publish an album. First I had to get permission from the Military Department of the Central Committee it was 1988, nothing happened without the will of the Central Committee . Then it was necessary to get approval from Ryzhkov, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. After that – consent of the General Staff, KGB and Interior Ministry. The approvals took both time and persistence. But this would not have confused Juice, seized by the idea.

Alexander and his wife Vera traveled many countries, travelled to China, Thailand, Montenegro… And did not come back without photographic trophies. But the main theme was still America – its vastness from a bird’s-eye view, its villages, its churches, drowning in fog and being groomed with snow… It was morning, the sun was barely setting on the horizon, it was chilly but great!.. You may be the only person in the world who sees this fairy tale. Juice doesn’t often let a picture go straight out of the camera. You can enhance colors if you want, you can let in some fog if you like, and you can do a lot if you know the photographic arsenal, from filters to Photoshop. It is not only well known to photographers but also thoroughly “felt”. Juice happens to “break” the picture so that it fits into one of the “styles” that come to mind.

Alexander shot a lot of “stars.”. Well, who hasn’t?? How not to shoot, if 99% of magazines are full of glamour..? We have to feed ourselves. Usually shoot stars so: they dress up in other people’s clothes, lead into someone else’s walls a salon, boutique, atelier , asked to smile, that was visible more beautiful white teeth if not too white – whitened in “Photoshop” . The main thing is that this star should resemble all the already printed ones as much as possible: the magazines are made according to strict rules and there’s no room for deviation from them. So act like this! This is how we act. Us, but not Juice! He needs everything on his own. He needs to “individualize” the star. Does that mean he certainly wants to define that person’s character?? I’m not sure. Obviously, there are certain images in the photographer’s head, something like roles, which the hero of the reportage has to play.

Ilze Liepa. A ballerina, an actress, a beautiful woman, endowed by nature with a bright personality. Probably the reporter photographed her periodically, over a considerable period of time. And the actress, seeing the result, willingly prepared for the next shoot, and this one or two shots. Every time a new costume, a new setting, a new idea..

– Sasha does not read bad books,” says Vera probably referring to useless, light fiction such as detective novels and “ladies’ novels” . – On his table you can also see a volume of Montaigne..

Don’t build a bridge between Montaigne and photography. I don’t believe the “free advice” so often given: if you listen to music, if you are into poetry, then… Then nothing happens! It’s all about personality. And what are the building blocks of it – ask God.

Back to Juice, to photography. He has an abundance and variety not only in subject matter, geography, interests and hobbies, but also in the multitude of techniques and styles of work on and with the image itself. Everything before and after the “great technical revolution” can be found in it. Isn’t that a bad thing?? But it’s hard to grasp the immensity. Juice’s “insatiability” is that he strives to try everything, to comprehend everything, to bring everything to possible perfection. His “aerial” shots of aviation are the same game and celebration of color although here color in terms of its importance to the image may be in …over a third place .

Juice doesn’t give up anything. Two frames to combine, five, please. To blur the image in one way or another: flash plus slow shutter speed or just slow shutter speed on the motion of the camera or subject, “pulling” the transfocator – no problem. Catching funny shadows, shooting through “weeping” glass or just “head-on”, without intricacies – and it’s to the yard. And each method brings its own fruit. But a special satisfaction and amazement, every photographer knows, brings a picture in which the fiction, if there was one, dissolves. And you perceive what’s happening in the picture simply as a piece of life, but that life which you were not able to imitate then or later. And these photos are a pebble in the walls of that photographic house that you unwittingly build for yourself.