TASS photo exhibition in Moscow speaking to spectators, says expert

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. ‘The Main Shots’ exhibition of digitalized pictures from the TASS photo archives that opened for the general public at Moscow’s downtown Manege Exhibition Hall really speaks to spectators in its own voice and a visitor can spend hours examining it, the well-known Russian photographer, traveler and producer of documentaries, Anton Lange, said after familiarization with the exhibition. "I think there’s scarcely any other news agency - in Russia at any rate - has ever produced exhibitions at this level," Lange said. "As for me, it’s important that people coming to photo displays don’t just move along the walls with their arms clutched behind their backs and stare at the pictures." "An exhibition of nowadays should speak out to the audience and I’m sure TASS has managed to attain that effect of a conversation embracing the spectator, the shot, history, and the photographer," he said. This kind of effect became possible with the aid of the ‘sound shower’ technologies, thanks to which the visitors can hear the stories behind the shots right from the photographers. "What’s important is that TASS has managed to process and digitalize a part of its immense archives and to present them to the general public in this huge amount," Lange said. "That’s a hug event from the point of view of the history of photography and reporting." "No one has ever done anything of this kind. It’s an exhibition where you can wander endlessly, examining it from the beginning to the end or from the end to the beginning and immersing in the events, faces, styles, and sounds," he said. Lange added that ‘The Main Shots’ was also a highly notable event in the cultural life of Moscow City and Russia. "Beyond any doubt, ‘The Main Shots’ deserves standing in an endless line of people at the entrance; it deserves coming here, watching it and getting amused at it," he said. Over the past three years, TASS has transferred into digital form and given description to almost 860,000 pictures made by the press photographers who worked for the agencies in different historical epochs. The visitors can see political leaders of the USSR and other nations, actors, writers, physicians, engineers, teachers and the people of numerous other trades, who lived in the 20th century and contributed to its history. Put up for display are the landmark features of the times, like the Moonwalker toys or the pistols for shaping dumpling manufactured by an electric engineering plant in the region of Mordovia. TASS is exhibiting the photographic masterpieces by Semyon Maisternman, Vladimir Musaelyan, Valery Khristoforov, Nikolai Rakhmano, Eduard Pesov, Vladimir Velengurin, Igor Zotin, and many others grand masters of photography who have worked for TASS. Read more