Together Uplift

Rising Dove, 1934

Image Description: 

Shrouded in darkness, a white dove with markings on its fanned tail and darkened face, soars up in the foreground with its wings spread as wide as the photograph itself. The background, yet black, hides a man who is a dove trainer, letting the bird go. Almost entirely concealed by one of the dove’s wings, the trainer’s face is absolutely emotionless. His right palm splays upwards while his left hand rests below. He wears a suit, not of special occasion, but like a businessman. 

Artist Bio:

This photograph was taken by American artist and electrical engineer Harold Eugene Edgerton, also known as Harold “Doc” Edgerton. He was able to make stop motion photography while working with time and lighting through his invention of the strobe light. In this photograph, the motion of the dove opening its wings to display its feathers as well as show the flying capabilities of being able to ascend into the air is captured using a technique called multiflash. This photograph is one of his examples of capturing in-motion pictures.

Two Bicycles, 1987 

Image Description:

In Two Bicycles, one child is riding a bicycle with a younger kid sitting in the back seat. Another child is riding a bicycle following them on the sidewalk. The sun cast sharp shadows to the left. Behind them is the façade of a building with a wooden doorway. Windows on the first floor are sealed with wooden boards from the inside, and the second floor is seemingly empty.  The contrast of the architecture and the children created a sense of isolation and loneliness.  

Artist Bio:

Alexander Lapin was a Russian photographer who lived and worked in Moscow and taught photography at the Moscow State University. Lapin’s photographs were mostly black and white, and many were filled with moments from his everyday life. He captured the emotions, the senses, the poverty, and alienations during the Soviet era. During the 1980s, Lapin and his wife Lena Lapin and two other friends always drove out on the streets in Moscow and photographed the empty city. They discovered shadows, birds, dogs, puddles, ruins, window frames, and occasionally, people. During this time, Lapin captured a completely ordinary city life with his  camera with no political propaganda or advertising. 

Morning, 1982                  from "On the Roads of Dagestan"

Image Description:

Where can we find the true portrayal of life in the USSR?  This photograph places us in Dagestan, a mountainous Russian republic located adjacent to the Caspian Sea, where the true portrayal of life is still in question. 

In April of 2020, the official average daily fatality count from COVID-19 was being reported as two to three people per day for the whole region. While first-hand accounts in the region were telling a different story of single villages holding up to five funerals in one afternoon. 

Artist Bio:

Evgeny Raskopov is from a class of photographers that were considered amateurs, or unofficial, in Soviet Russia. Photography was a highly controlled medium in the USSR, only to be used as government propaganda. Much of this underground photography depicts the life of everyday people, often in rural settings. These images of the everyday are in stark contrast to the “socialist realism” displayed in the state-sponsored images.