Sergey Kivrin: if one runs, one must be the first..

They say it’s not a bullet that pierces an obstacle, but the air it compresses. Imagine a movie shot. The bullet has not yet reached the glass, but there is already a hole in it: first on the front wall, then on the back. And if we “compress” not the air, but the time? What miracles does it show?? Yes, and how to squeeze this dubious substance

Olympic Games in Vancouver 2010. Fan

In cinematography, it’s called “compressing” time. You dissect time with the thinnest scalpel. How capacious, dense, tangible it is! But only at its most important moment, the moment of fulfillment, the moment of truth. But God willing, that’s the moment to capture..

These thoughts flashed through my mind as I was looking at the “most-most” shots in the “Sports” album, given to me by its author – the greatest photographer of our time in height , Sergey Kivrin.

Seryozha I called this Kid almost two meters tall! – 197 see for accuracy , because for a long time I perceived him only as the son of Vladislav Kivrin, the photo correspondent of the Soviet Union magazine I had known for a long time.

Vladislav filmed everything a reporter is supposed to. Sports were also part of his interests. Seryozha’s son saw a beautiful green field, black paths around it, and uncles running along the paths. “Why do they run, Daddy?” – “Who will run first, will get a prize.”. – “Then why are the others running away??..”The question remains unanswered. But the boy himself understood: if you run, you have to be the first. Or at least something different from the rest. We all get that from the ancient, animal genes.

Vladislav Kivrin was born in the Volga town of Yurievets. There are a lot of small but charming towns in the upper Volga: Kineshma, Uglich, Myshkin, Plyos, you name it all! Even today they carry the spirit of merchant class, with their ancient taverns, half-stone and half-wooden stocky mansions with carved platbands and shutters. Seryozha’s great-grandfather, Anton, was a “thorough” man. He owned a wharf and some steamboats or barges. In short, the “Artamonov case”… I assume that when the new government took over, the steamship driver was immediately released from the “case”.

His son, Seryozha’s grandfather, Donat Antonovich Kivrin, turned into some sort of official – a surveyor or an accountant – I didn’t bother to specify. Well, it’s for sustenance. And for the soul… “Grandpa liked to take pictures. Something like that, I remember hearing… He had a magnifier, he made it himself. Remarkable thing in this device was that instead of usual light bulb kerosene lamp at the worst grandfather used whether sun or moonlight, which he brought to the magnifier with the help of light guides …”. So now you say that fiberglass optics is a phenomenon of our day!

What and how grandfather took pictures, we can only guess now, material evidence has not survived. But as if my grandfather had been published in the local paper..

Then the war. In 1946, Vladislav Kivrin was demobilized. The question was raised: where to now?? Of all worldly pursuits only photography is at hand. The business as usual. The first step after my discharge was to take the camera department of the All-Union Institute of Cinematography, the camera department. We stormed the place together with Yura Tranquilitsky, another war veteran, who was a year younger than Vladislav. He successfully navigated the obstacle course, and Kivrin was blown away. But it turned out that next door to VGIK, at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition later VDNKh , there was a photo service. The exhibition had great needs it needed photographers and laboratory assistants, too… There were a lot of photographers there, most of them were war correspondents.

It was there that Mikhail Trakhman and Lev Ustinov I knew them well , and many others who later joined the Novosti Press Agency APN , based on the Soviet Information Bureau. Photographers from the agency became the most powerful “grouping” of photojournalists in the country. And for a long time VDNKh’s photo service was the only one to produce over-the-top images – prints of dozens of square meters. Being a lab technician in such a mighty studio was not only a practice, but also an honor. We knew the best printers – virtuosos – by name.

And if there was a big “hack job”, we ran only to them. Vladislav Kivrin could have been satisfied with that, but… his photography began to turn into a passion. I heard that the Sovietsky Soyuz magazine was looking for decent lab technicians, and even announced a contest for them. In a magazine, the way to take pictures is closer than at an exhibition of achievements. Vadim as Vladislav was usually called worked as a laboratory assistant for a short time, and then was promoted to photojournalist. An interesting nomadic life began.

The magazine’s not well known in the country. It works for foreign countries. But his correspondents are welcomed everywhere. I’ll bet he was: “Pravda”, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, is written all over the papers, and the next thing you know, “Soviet Union” magazine. It makes an impression both in New York and in the field. No one just happens to get one of those. What if it’s the inspectors sent by Imperial order?? Receptive as they should be, all doors open: show us what you’ve got. Father also, according to the son, quickly and well get along with people, was a good psychologist, and the guy is not timid. Not unreasonable qualities for a reporter..

The father did not exert much pressure on his son, neither in the sense of any outpouring of affection, nor in the sense of mentoring: he was raising a man, not a girl. Let him get used to making decisions and take responsibility for them. Sergey understood it this way: no one but himself… And he also evaluated himself on a special scale: he exaggerated his faults and underestimated his merits.

My father was often away on business, the boy lived with his grandparents. The Will! Having accustomed to controlling himself, Sergei was aware of what was good and even pleasant, and what was bad and, perhaps, disgusting… Schoolboys and pranks did not attract him, but kicking a soccer or volleyball ball did! Scars on the chin from falling on the asphalt – that’s honorable. It’s not like a black eye from a fight. The backyard game, of course, is not really a sport. But there was something of him: excitement and the enduring desire to be the first, the best. It is worth the effort, it is worth the time, if the goal is perfection.

China. The opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics.

Summer Olympics 2012. Cross

2012 Summer Olympics. Triathlon

“Coming to the journalism department, I did not get one point, but I was accepted to the evening department – I turned out to be a valuable player for the New York State University team…”. Not bad. But evening classes do not allow you to avoid being drafted into the army. So you need a job that gives you that kind of respite. A place was found in one of the serious institutes. But you need to combine study, work and sport you were admitted because of what – work it off ! is almost a feat.

And Sergey, who is used to working up a sweat, to the point of exhaustion, realized that he was not yet ready for such a feat. I went to the dean’s office and told them: either switch to a full-time department it has a military department and you won’t have to fight at all or come watch me play for Dynamo! Well, if you’re going for broke, switch to the daytime. The teachers didn’t have to blush: Kivrin graduated with honors. Yes, sports is not a useless activity at all.

To get into journalism, you have to present some published works. You can take notes, you can take photographs. In the package of documents Seryozha put a tiny, matchbox-sized photo published in “Pionerskaya Pravda”. The children’s newspaper at the time had the highest circulation, tens of millions of copies. The format was not large, so it must have been enough material. To be published in it was already a sign.

And then there was Moskovsky Komsomolets, with a fairly modest circulation at the time, but the paper was kind to newcomers in journalism. The pay was modest, but they printed a lot. Just what you need for the presentation of printed works. And also… Dad often took his son with him when he was shooting. I shoot as I see it, you shoot as you see it. Somehow they’re shooting another athlete. Dad took a good picture, but my son was probably just as good. At the editorial office, my father showed my heir’s work, but he hid his own. Beautiful! Cover! The “Sport in the USSR” magazine was founded under the auspices of the Soviet Union magazine.

That’s the cover and got Sergei. When the picture was approved, Daddy revealed the truth. We didn’t shout at the master for that, on the contrary, we even said: so let him shoot something else for us. That’s the son! And so it went. Over the past few years, Sergei has been recognized as a sports photographer by his colleagues, athletes, connoisseurs and organizers of his. For a photographer, just as for a journalist who writes, it is very important not only to “get into the theme,” but also to “get into the environment” and become your own person. I think, it was not only the bright pictures and the rumor, “Sergei is a great guy,” that helped him enter the army, but also his athletic temperament. “No matter what or where I play, I give it 100%, I’m ready to tear up my opponent!”.

Olympic flame

Volleyball 2007

Sochi 2014. Alexander Ovechkin

The 1970s were coming to an end, the country was preparing to the New York Olympics. But I was not accredited for it. There’s a strict rule: only one photo reporter per edition. From “Soviet Union” – Yury Korolev, from “Sport in the USSR” – Zhenya Miransky. But as I had already become well known I was offered the job by the Organising Committee. That meant I was in the group of the most privileged photographers: free passage everywhere, comfortable, advantageous spots… I had to hand all my film footage in to the organizing committee. But that meant losing the staff that I valued above all money and fees. I kept them, which, in general, did not affect the overall quality of the shooting, and the committee got everything they needed. It was my first Olympics. Sochi was my 14th

When Kivrin left for Sochi last winter, I thought, ‘I don’t envy you. Such a burden was not for me…”. And true. “Sleeping throughout the Olympics,” says Kivrin, “is never longer than 3-4 hours a night. And that’s if you don’t have to spend hours on the road from your apartment to the sports grounds..Such a regime for two weeks, and with the Paralympics even longer. “A photo reporter’s workload is greater than that of a participant,” Sergei continues. – That went the distance – and a day or two of rest. But every day you are “on the distance”, and on your shoulder there is a 30 kg bag… During the Olympics I lose 10-12 kilos of weight. And this despite the fact that Sergey is one of the wiry, lean ones.

Fourteen Olympics is an impossible number for an athlete, but for a photographer it is something close to the breaking point of physical and psychological stress. Not only sports photographers, but almost everyone thinks of the world as a chain of obstacles that you have to overcome to get a good shot.

Everything was in the way: omnipresent guards, administrative and improvised bans, crappy lighting in rooms, camera spots allotted in the middle of nowhere, all kinds of unwanted trash crawling into the frame, even my colleagues crowding around and willingly or unwillingly pushing me under your elbow when the frame was about to be shot… That’s when I was shooting. And before that..? Where to live, how to get there, how to “get through” when you get there? And then there are the thousands of pesky burrs that bully and piss you off. When you look at a brilliant picture, you think: everything was on a plate for the reporter – what’s not to photograph?! Okay, let’s keep thinking that way..

– Sergei, lift the veil over what’s on the other side of the camera.

– Next to New York, I had the Olympics in Sarajevo. I was accredited by my magazine “Sport in the USSR”, but I was going as a tourist and paid a pretty penny. In Sarajevo I lost my camera that was stolen… At the Olympics in Greece it was so hot that one of my photojournalist colleagues had a heart attack and died! Sometimes, if I was accommodated far away from the venue and the one-way trip took a couple of hours, I’d have to sleep under the table of my friends who were more fortunate with the accommodations. And at the Lillehammer Olympics I lived… in the toilet. I had no room in the hotel, but I had two toilets on the floor. I secretly took one of them, and got the key for it. I came in the dark, I left the dark, I had all the comforts at my fingertips. And the full length on the floor..

– Was there anything brighter than a lamp over the toilet? You’ve got a suitcase full of medals, certificates and prizes, and I don’t think they’re pennies?

– After the Olympics in New York we agreed with Zhenya Miransky that together we will send our pictures to the Adidas-AIPS-Canon contest, which is the most prestigious contest among sports photographers. And if we win something, we share the prize, no matter whose picture was taken. We started to put the collection in an envelope, and an argument ensued. I didn’t like one of my shots, and Zhenka insisted on it. We even almost torn it up, pulling it from each other. But Zhenka did put it in. And get this: this is the one that won the 8,000 francs prize! And the biggest prize I managed to snatch was $50,000 for the “Volleyball” shot!

Olympic synchronized swimming champion Olga Brusnikina

The jump

The 2012 Summer Olympics. Maxim Mikhailov

But let’s finally turn to Sergei Kivrin’s shots. What makes it possible to feel the Master’s hand? Photography, just like any other genre, is perceived by everybody in his own way. One sees in it what the other ten do not see. This also applies to the author himself. He looks at his work with preconceived ideas: he underestimates this image and overestimates that one, giving it meanings which are simply impossible to find with a detached eye. Of course, I’m subjective, too. So, subjectively speaking, in Kivrin’s best shots, I stand out myself stand out! the energy the picture exudes.

Look at the swimmers, the eyes flailing with energy! But it’s “only” rhythmic figure, synchronized swimming – the very grace and charm. All right, boxing: a punching bag, jaw on the side, that’s normal! Or wrestling. Or a weightlifting bout… And here’s a swimmer during the start from the platform. A bunch of muscles and tendons. You can make a scientific report on this picture: how biceps, triceps, bones and all insides of the athlete work in a thousandth of a second during a jerk. We’ve seen so many starts, but this is the first time!

– The most important thing is to shoot not what you see, but how you feel. You’re looking, you know what you want. And then sooner or later, you’ll get lucky. But you have to press the button a moment before the event happens. Otherwise, you miss out. You should have a feeling..

Foreshadowing is anticipating a shot, or dumbly hoping that a moment that should exist in nature will pop out and “jump” into your shot? In tennis, people often fall down. But it was important for Kivrin to shoot that the athlete would not just fall anywhere, but would fly for the camera, and it would be good to have the ball in the frame. I wish I could see the face of the “flyer” at that moment! He did not mention if it was a year or two that he was raving about this shot. When you flip through the pictures, when you see this one, you get a funny chuckle. But there’s not even a thought that for the sake of this “fun” reporter sat like a cat by the mouse hole for a hell of a lot of time. Well, the photographer took the camera, “bang”, hit it! “Nah, I’m not lucky. I have to sit and wait. Andrey Golovanov, my partner is the lucky one. He shows up for ten minutes – and then he has a “situation”.

I think there’s a bit of coquetry involved. Or a little bit of self-loathing. Kivrin’s not that unlucky. But he is “analyzing”. And when you analyze it, you can justify any point of view. Sergey Kivrin as an educated man cannot do without dogmas. In my opinion, he has a lot of them. And I am not saying that all of them are empty. But many of them are questionable to me. One of them was Kivrin’s: I don’t like sports, I don’t cheer for anyone, I don’t watch any competitions on “TV”, and in general – I am here by chance, a passerby… Guys, but this is nonsense! Would you believe a surgeon who would say that to cut living flesh is like a knife on your own throat??.. I admit that he doesn’t take sadistic pleasure in plunging a scalpel into his body. But he does it with the conviction that he can’t do otherwise, that it’s his duty, his right, and his… interest. And a kind of pleasure, adrenaline, testosterone – who else knows what clever words..

Yes, the boiling passions of a sports fan are useless for a sports photojournalist: they disturb, distract, confuse, and, finally, damage objectivity. Well, so are TV commentators. However the photographers shriek, laugh and cry… And the photographer remains impassive? Certainly not. Otherwise his photos will be devoid of the warmth that only a “subjective” attitude toward the event and the athlete gives birth to.

And you want depth in a photograph. And to achieve it you have to try and try. ♪ As he’s used to it ♪. At all..

World Championships in Athletics. New York. Yelena Isinbayeva

Cuba, Havana

– In general, it’s hard to shoot sports?

– Nonsense, it’s easier than anything else..

You can’t do it without foppery!?.

– What’s the hardest sport to shoot??

– I told you before: volleyball.

-???

– In volleyball it’s hard to predict anything: where the ball will go, what situation will arise in the next second… That’s why you shouldn’t shoot the game, but the player. You pick the one you’re most interested in, you follow him. Then you have a chance to catch something.

– And what is the most interesting kind of sport to shoot??

– Chess!

Well, you know, chess can also be called a sport very conditionally. Then perhaps my lounging on the sofa is also a sport.

– There’s a lot going on in chess, it’s not an external struggle, but an internal one. The trouble is that they don’t let you follow the twists and turns, you are given five minutes to shoot at the beginning and the players are just getting warmed up..

Maybe Kivrin is right? With all the dynamics of what’s going on, shooting sports is pretty monotonous.

– It’s not interesting to photograph the winners: he came running, waving his hands, smiling… It’s interesting to photograph those who are far behind. That’s where the fight is, that’s where the real will is, when an exhausted athlete is not fighting for the first place, but for the twenty-first.

When an athlete has skillfully handled a barbell, honor and a medal. And when the goal is over, when the bar starts to live by its own interests, when you lack just a little, just a gram of effort – and everything goes to hell, to the dogs… In fact, as in any other photography: the worse it is, the better for the image. You remember a picture of a crying man better than ten smiling ones… That’s the law of drama.

Venice, 2009