Photographer Lev Sherstennikov: a self-report of the time that was not lost

Self-report. That was the word used in the Vyborg photographic club for a small personal exhibition you had once every few years, so that all your colleagues could see just how fruitlessly or, on the contrary, genially the years had been spent. There was only one part of fast-paced life to consider, and that was dedication to photography.

Essay “Self-Report” from the book of L. Sherstennikov’s “Remains Behind the Scenes” is printed in abridged form.

Lev Sherstennikov was born in 1938 in Ufa. I have been interested in photography since junior high school. Graduated in 1960 from Leningrad Institute of Film Engineers, but did not work by profession. I began publishing in newspapers right away, shooting for Izvestia, then working for Literaturnaya Gazeta.

In 1963 I began working for Ogonyok magazine, first as an unstaffed photographer, and a year later as a staff photographer. Not only did the work allow me to travel all over the Soviet Union and visit foreign countries, but it also provided me with the opportunity to meet some of the most interesting people.

In 2012, L. Sherstennikov’s books came out in 2012:

“Left Behind” – about fellow famous photographers.

“Strokes. Picture and Word” – about interesting people with whom I had a chance to communicate.

Children’s books – photos and poems for children – “Tanya’s book” and “You and I”.

“Marasmus” the book of poems with which all other editions began .

Dmitry Likhachev

Andrei Sakharov

In such a creative atmosphere, of course, I could not stay away from the process. I shot my first film in 1946. Took pictures, but not yet developed them myself. I took pictures with Balda 4.5×6 roller film. I don’t remember all the shots, of course, except one. There I filmed a friend of mine who took off his pants especially for this shoot. I must have realized at once that in order to perfect my skills I needed to work in nature.

The next film wasn’t made until 1949. But ever since then, not a month went by in half a century that I didn’t shoot and develop at least one film. The manifestations, like my brother’s, I made them myself. By prescription, of course. There were jars of chemicals – methyl, hydroquinone, sulfite and so on. There were small scales, and the weights were copper money. The denomination from kopeck to nickel corresponded exactly to the weight in grams of the coin.

From the very beginning I checked with my brother what shutter speeds and apertures should be set on 17 DIN film 45 units of GOST in the sun and what apertures should be set on a cloudy day. Knowing how to “guess” shutter speed came in handy for all my other work. We had photoexposure meters, especially ones that didn’t lie, when we had already printed hundreds of magazine pages and published a few books.

I remember with what lust was uttered the word “Lunacyx.”! It was more prestigious to own a camera back then than to own a yacht today.

My brother never told me anything about the composition. I didn’t need to. There must have been an innate feeling: a frame must be filled out so that nothing could be cut from it, if possible. But he did say once about the moment of shooting. I showed him a flaccid picture of a deserted street: “You should have waited for a car to pass by.”. Oh, yeah! It turns out that waiting can change something in a picture. That one phrase of his mentor was memorable forever.

In the last years of high school I photographed non-stop: in the yard, on the street, on hikes and bicycle rides, secretly in class and clearly, even with the installation of light, portraits at home. I got to the point where I considered being present anywhere without a camera to be so pointless that it was better not to be present at all. Usually such crazy people rush to the Institute of Cinematography. I was smart enough not to. Alexei had already tried to take it once.

Elem Klimov

Bella Akhmadulina

Just a little – and would have broken the bar… How many times have I later heard from applicants who did not get into the sanctuary that he was just a little short of a score. Well, at least let them be comforted by that… I felt my level. I might be able to shoot. But what do I know about painting, about the history of cinema, about cameramen, about masses of other, perhaps, unnecessary things which may be asked by malicious people at the colloquium as they called the interview then ??

In a local cinema I saw an information poster of the Leningrad Institute of Film Engineers. It had purely technical faculties – mechanical, chemical, electro, but it said: an elective course in photography. That’s what I need. I only found out later: I was tricked. No one even mentioned an optional photo. But the train had already started, and I was racing down a track which, I was sure, would lead me to something photographic.

I’ve been in newspapers before. “Soviet Photo” published some of my photos and gave me the confidence: I dare to dare. Buddy asks: “And where do you want to go??”In Ogonyok.”!!!” – “You think you’re the only fool who dreams about it?”Of course I’m not the only one, but I have a goal: I’m twenty now, and I’ll be in the magazine by the time I’m thirty!

And here’s an acquaintance with Koposov. This may be the most fateful meeting of my life.

I can’t even say that we were friends. Friendship is when there are no secrets. And Koposov is such a thing in himself that he can’t get to the most mundane things about his personal life, not just about secrets. I can’t do it. If I like a man, I’m communicative, terribly chatty like a woman, some might say . If a person is unpleasant, I am prim, sneering and rude… Well, I’m no angel, I know that. But I think I’m seldom wrong..

And now Koposov is already in “Ogonyok”, and he’s only a little over twenty. I’ve made up my mind: I’m not quitting college, I’m finishing it, and then I’m on my way. I’m in Ufa, I’m assigned to a TV studio, but I’m running as a photojournalist for a local newspaper. But there’s something of me in the central ones, too. As I had a glimpse of something Chekhovian: “To New York, only to New York!..”Literaturka” takes me off the beaten track. But I can shoot where I want, I can travel.

And Koposov is now one of the presenters in Ogonyok. Head! Gena feels that I’m eager to join this sanctuary. But how to break through? “Lev, understand, Ogonyok doesn’t really need an extra photographer. And if he has to, it should be someone who can bring something of his own to the table. In “Ogonyok” everyone has his own thing. Umnov’s is ballet, Borodulin’s is sports, Tunkel’s is a sage, a thinker, Uzlyan’s is fast reportage…” What about me?? And I’m all and nothing. I know that Koposov is buzzing in Friedland’s ears: there is such a guy Sherstennikov ..

Friedland knows it himself. I’ve seen his work in Soviet Photo where he is a member of the editorial board. Then on “Thursday” again, a self-report ! in “Literaturka” he noticed: there’s something a guy is scribbling. All right, let him try to shoot for the magazine… I find the theme – Biological Institute.

Friedland gives me a color film, Koposov lends me a wide camera. I have my nose in the ground every frame I shoot goes straight to developing, and if I have a shot, Fridlyand gives it to me to print small in color. See, it looks like the theme is already established, but I still keep shooting. Finally Semyon Osipovich says: “That’s enough! “Theme surrender.”. The tab is pasted, sent to the printer, the sparkling magazine is out. And the main photographic theme of the issue central insert is mine.

Who am I, by what right?? And bring in Tyapkin-Lyapkin! Koposov tells me later about the storm that broke out at the flyover. All my future colleagues and friends descended on Friedland. What right does he have to squander a sacred magazine space? They, the veterans themselves, wait months for an opportunity to print a four-page centerfold! And why should such topics be given to the unknown??! I did not, Friedland defends himself, he suggested it, and the magazine’s blood must be rejuvenated a bit… I fought back somehow, they did not peck at me completely. Saved himself and defended me..

Yuri Nikulin

Mikhail Ulyanov

My theme in the magazine was, at first, science. I liked to shoot great men, academics – big-caliber people – personalities. I liked to take pictures in laboratories. All laboratories are dreary – mura mura. But you can make up all sorts of things. If it’s color, the filters are red, green, yellow, blue. It’s a lot of nonsense, but it looks good. “We need effects, not facts…” – remember this brilliant line from the movie “Springtime”. If it’s black and white, the prints are off the charts. I’m taking a picture of an academic, a brain specialist. And he’s got neurons growing out of his head. I’ve imprinted it in the microscopic and turned it into a negative. Turns out, that’s what the magazine needs.

But apart from science, I had other things to shoot. They sent me to the kolkhoz once. The collective farm was supposed to be wonderful, but he had the wrong chairman. That’s the mistake the collective farmers had to correct – to elect a new one. We were lodged at my grandmother’s. The bed is piled high with seven featherbeds and even more pillows. Sleeping sweetly! I wake up with a calf’s soak. Here we are, the calf is my neighbor. Living in a house like a cat. There’s white snow outside. It’s neatly covered by the farm machinery – seeders, seedworms, whatnot… There’s a hubbub in the club. Mostly women, old women. Black handkerchiefs, frowning glances.

It’s like a cult. I see they do not believe in the bright future, which they will enter tomorrow with the new chairman… The chairman was elected, puzzled him. There he is, standing at the window in the morning, with his head down, wondering where to start? Or maybe it’s straight from the suitcase station? I brought the subject to Friedland, and he had already had two or three days to live. He grinned bitterly. They hadn’t beaten you yet. Well, look, you live..

And in those days the film “Chairman” came out. My pictures are like shots from that film. So those weirdos who made the movie haven’t been beaten up yet either… It turns out that there are already a lot of unbeaten people..

Where did the 1960s come from?? All the same unscathed guys. True, many of my parents did their time in the camps, and many died in them. But those born at the end of the thirties didn’t have an animal fear at night – what if there was a knock at the door?. Tongues weren’t tied in a tight knot, no one was afraid of eavesdropping or denunciation. All kinds of jokes were poisoned in their companies, and I don’t remember anyone being hurt by it. I’m not counting the dissidents. I think they were happy to call the fire on themselves. But it was a special island. Some percentage of protesters is always and everywhere..

Let’s get back to photography. To photography as a tool of my penetration into other worlds. I have too beautifully bent, but I want to explain the essence with an example. A young but already famous and brilliant Slava Zaitsev was invited to the editorial office. Fashion is the last thing I was interested in. Behind it could only be an interest in the equation describing the behavior of a free-falling piece of wire in an airy environment.

I ran through the conference room where the meeting was taking place. I heard a few phrases that slowed me down, so I sat down and listened. Slava talked about the laws of fashion, about the problems of fashion, about its inner life, and it seemed to me that he was talking about photography, just replace one word with another. And before that, I already suspected that there are some common laws by which photography, literature and music all exist.

I had a gut feeling about the “density” of a photograph. And then I began to discover whether or not there is one in the text. When you read it, there’s nothing but water, and when you squeeze it out, there’s nothing left. Just like with some random, ridiculous photo. There’s no composition, it’s not formed. Maybe cropping would help? You start to cut, cut, cut, until you cut the whole thing and you are convinced that all your efforts are useless.

Arkady Raikin

Mikhail Gluzsky

Photography, like literature, has a “text”. But there’s also a subtext. Subtext, in my opinion, is more important than text. For it’s the subtext that makes you think, look for associations, make assumptions, draw conclusions, generalizations. Subtext is intimate. When you open it, you enter into coitus with the author, you fall in love with him of course, with his work, line, thought . And at the same time, you “appropriate” it to yourself. Yes, by the author himself.

He is now your sidekick, your comrade-in-arms, your contemporary. Never mind that it died five centuries ago. That’s the power of literature! But also photography, although the latter is less strong, and occurs less frequently. Just your fantasies, you say? Possible. But life without fancy is so boring.

…So, kolhoz. But kolhoz is only an episode. My hobby so far is the academic world. Not that I care that much about the problems that were solved there. I am rather attracted by the scale of personalities, by the pronounced individuality, by the dissimilarity of scientists, if you look at them closely – the strongmen of science, who have their own schools, directions, and reputation in the world. I’ve taken pictures of a dozen people like that. But only three people left a mark in my mind: Kolmogorov, Budker and Amosov. The latter somehow, imperceptibly for me, turned into a tuning fork, by which I calibrate the fidelity of sound to this day.

Andrey Kolmogorov, mathematician

…Mathematician Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov aroused in me curiosity, mixed with a slight bewilderment. I first met a man with noticeable “oddities” in his behavior. Then I’ll meet another such genius, Sakharov. In their everyday behavior, they strongly resembled each other. The impression of Kolmogorov, who was the first major figure I looked at up close, was immense..

Andrei Budker, physicist

…Andrei Budker. Physicist. Antiparticle explorer, antimatter explorer. What is it? You have to ask him, for me it’s all mystical. And he himself is something elusive? slipping away? Mysticism Again. I wish we could create a portrait of the Devil or the Werewolf. He was a genius they’re all geniuses , a hustler and a womaniser, I suppose. Scattered ideas like husks of sunflower seeds. Lived with gusto, but died early. Was a good man.

…And Amosov appears. First, his figure grows out of his books – “Thoughts and Heart”, “Notes from the Future”. What a man, what a word! Tough, direct, concise. Phrase chopped. But in each the power, the spring. Probably made of granite itself. It would be nice to check. Checked. The first conversation on the phone and I was already in Kiev : “And there was no need to come, and your magazine is crap!”. Just like that, word for word.

Indeed, granite, indeed, flint. Then he finally gave me permission to come to the institute, he sees – I’m a chicken, still young. What’s the point of killing someone like that?. OK, take pictures. Take pictures during surgeries and stay in the office. I’m in the chair and he’s in his world. Whether it continues to operate still in their brains. Or does he curse at the profession of a surgeon – he wasn’t going to do it from his youth. But this is fate… A man is sitting there and all of his worries are just peeling off his skin. Doesn’t notice me at all. What else do you need?? Look and shoot..

Nikolai Amosov, Surgeon

Amosov never lied, neither in his speeches, nor in his heartfelt conversations. I haven’t met people like that anymore. My other idol, Nikulin, could easily lie. But it wasn’t a lie, it was a hoax. Agree, a completely different matter. I also try not to lie every time.

Why? I had a feeling that if I lie, I am humiliating myself in some way. So I’m afraid of something? I’m afraid they’ll find out my true face? The face of a boor or a truth-teller? I don’t think so. I just don’t like lying organically, it makes me feel like shit. Of course, none of this applies to photography, where truth and lies mild falsification go hand in hand.