Series: City of Shadows
Title: Untitled
Year: 1992-1994
Genre/Approach
This photo can be classified under both expressionism and non-realism.
Methods/ Techniques
Similar to Kenna’s techniques, Titarenko takes images with a long exposure and put the images mono-tone to reinforce the emotions delivered out of it. He also uses tripod to maintain sharpness with still people. Titarenko's prints are subtly crafted in the darkroom. “Bleaching and toning add depth to his nuanced palette of grays, rendering each print a unique interpretation of his experience and imbuing his work with a personal and emotive visual character.”
Description
Movement of people is the core element of this photo. Old women standing in the middle of the frame naturally become the focus of the photo for their stillness. Emotion of loneliness and depression is effectively embedded in the image. The old women almost seems lost and separated from the whole world. Photo is in black and white in order to magnify the emotions of the women. Titarenko intentionally generate feeling of sympathy out of the viewers by setting the photo these ways. The contrast between fast moving people and still women emphasize the intention even more.
Context/Ideas
The series is taken during the collapse of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1991. Titarenko tries to convey the negative emotions of everyday soviet people during the time by extracting movement of people. Titarenko describes that “More than anything, I wanted to convey my ‘people-shadows’ metaphor as accurately as possible. This metaphor became the core of both the new vision and new series.” Movement of the crowd of people flowing through the frame forms a sort of human sea, providing viewers with a feeling of non-reality. This abstraction lets the viewers to feel the emotion itself much better.
I think his idea of delivering people’s emotion is very successful with the above image. The movement of people forms faint human shadows around the three women and suggest non-realism within the image.
Response
The concepts and techniques that Titarenko used in the series are really interesting. I am especially impressed with his expression of the situation during that time and the way he set up the camera and controls each component. I believe, the image above especially, has a significant relationship to time. It almost seems like time has stopped although we could visually see the movements around the image. In my opinion the way he focuses on the still people instead of moving people cause this effect. Juxtaposition of motion and still also contributes to put an emphasis on either components.
Other images from Titarenko
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