Russian Orthodox Church, April 2009

Moscow at Night, August 2008

Siberian Oil, June 2008

In the April issue of National Geographic appears a story by photographer Gerd Ludwig on the re-emergence of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is the third of a trilogy of stories that have run recently by Gerd covering various contemporary issues in Russia. I had a chance to catch up with Gerd in his home in Los Angeles to discuss his work.

David Griffin: You’ve been covering Russia for many years now, what triggered your interest initially?

Gerd Ludwig: I grew up in postwar Germany. My father had been a soldier of the German Army that fought through Russia all the way to Stalingrad. As a young child I would listen to my father as he conjured images of endless winter landscapes, of soldiers battling their way through snowstorms, and of people hiding in stables and barns. Later I began to grasp the darkness behind the stories…that the landscapes were stained with blood, the soldiers dying, and the people were Russians filled with fear.

DG: When did you discover you wanted to take Russia on as a long-term project?

GL: In the early 1990s. While documenting the New Russia primarily meant to photograph the transformation of a society from state controlled to market economy at manic speed, it simultaneously became a confrontation with my personal history. Russia felt strange—and yet so near, due to the stories of my childhood.

DG: You are attracted to extremes: from hard-core partiers and the nouveau-riche, to the seriously downtrodden and socially forgotten. Why? 

GL: It is a result of photographing a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor getting are getting poorer. Only 20 years ago, Russia—as part of the former Soviet Union—was a self-declared classless society. Within a few years however, its rapid transition to warp-speed wild-west capitalism had completely wiped out the middle-class and for the first time produced staggering social inequities. 

DG: Your work has a certain looseness to it, the compositions are layered and often feel chaotic. What are you trying to achieve?

GL: I like complex photographs that reflect a complex world. They should speak to the viewer intellectually and emotionally. A great photograph broadens the mind and touches the soul.

DG: You are often shooting in dark conditions, how has digital affected your approach?

GL: I still use my handheld flash but the recent high ISO capabilities allow me to shoot dimly lit situations while maintaining a sense of place. My story “Moscow Never Sleeps” was captured digitally with Canon’s 1DSMkII and III. It would have been impossible to shoot without these latest advances in digital technology.

DG: Who are the biggest influences on your work? Who inspires you?

GL: My influences and inspirations are varied, I try to learn from everybody; from artist; from classic and contemporary photographers; from my students at workshops; even from amateurs’ snap shots—and I treasure conversations about photography with colleagues and friends.

DG: What has been the most challenging situation you have encountered in the former Soviet Union?

GL: Shooting inside the Chernobyl reactor. After a difficult process of obtaining permissions, I was allowed to venture deeper into the contaminated reactor than any Western photographer. Radiation levels are still so high that workers’ access is limited to one 15-minute shift per day. Dressed in several layers of protective gear I entered the belly of the beast. It was dark, loud and claustrophobic; the clock was ticking as we rushed through dimly lit, cluttered, highly radioactive tunnels; strewn with wires, shredded metal and other debris. I struggled not to trip. Dodging the sparks of drillers. Highly contaminated concrete dust. I knew I had less than 15 minutes to capture in image in an environment that few have ever seen. The adrenaline surge was extraordinary. 

DG: Why do you take such risks?

GL: Like many of my colleagues I take calculated risks on behalf of unwitting and otherwise voiceless victims—and in the hope that we can help to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future.  

DG: What was the most enjoyable assignment?

GL: A story on the Grimm Brothers in 1999. My research consisted of reading 200 fairy tales, often as bedtime stories, to my then 10-year-old son; then returning to the small villages and towns I grew up in Germany; the forests where I picked berries as a young child with my family; the hay-filled barns where I stole my first kiss as a young teenager; the local beer festivals…. What an enjoyable assignment back to the land of my childhood dreams!

DG: Is there anywhere in the world that you would hope to photograph that you have not?

GL: I always wanted to be the first photographer to shoot a story on the Moon. However, the way things are going, it does not look like it is going to happen.... As an alternative, a three-month long assignment in a very remote tiny Siberian village would do.

DG: In all your travels, where would you stay for the rest of your life if you had to make the choice?

GL: “Der Weg ist das Ziel” (the journey is the destination)! I hope I never have to make such a choice, not to be able to travel is an unbearable thought. 

You can check out more photographs from Gerd’s most recent Russian coverages here: "Siberian Oil," "Moscow at Night," and "Russian Orthodox Church."

And while Gerd anxiously awaits my call for an assignment to the Moon, he is teaching his own photographic workshops, detailed here at the top of his website.  

—David Griffin

Comments