Ice Fishing on the Volga River

If I'm not careful online one search leads to another and pretty soon I've followed a trail of ice fishers around the world. So here are two images of ice fishing Russian style. Apparently ice fishing in North America is often a very social activity but ice fishing in Scandinavia and in the Far East is often a more solitary activity. Ice fishing shacks also do not seem as prevalent abroad. Fishers simply wear layer upon layer of warm clothing.
The first photograph above is by photographer Andrew Moore, an American photographer whose photographs of Russia taken between 2000 and 2004 are fascinating.
The second is an image I found in a Picasa gallery. I don't know anything about the photographer but I love the image. My assumption is that poverty and ingenuity as well as a lack of substantially warm clothing might account for this fisherman's use of a plastic bag to shield himself from the wind.

Ice Houses

Left: 'Untitled #1' - Catherine Opie
Right Top: 'Spider Island' - Scott Peterman Right Bottom: 'Kents Landing' - Scott Peterman

About 5 or 6 years ago I was browsing Amazon.com and I came across a book of photographs by Catherine Opie. The book was called 'Skyways and Icehouses'. I put it on my wish list where its remained ever since. When I first found the book it was listed at something like $25.00. Well, now it's available only as a collectable and the minimum price I've seen anywhere for the same book , and thats for a used copy, is about $88.00. So I'm kicking myself I didn't buy it when I first found it. Because I still love her Icehouse photographs. Opie took the photographs as part of a project she did during a yearlong residency at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I understand that the Icehouse photographs were exhibited in a very large format which must have made the experience of standing beside them really incredible.

A few years later I came across the Ice Shack photographs of Scott Peterman. Again the photographs have been exhibited in a large format: 30" x 38 1/2" according to an article in Art in America magazine written by Melissa Kuntz.

I love the vast whiteness of the landscape, the minimalist ice shack structures. These photographs embody for me what I find so beautiful about winter.

'Ocean 1'

I stumbled upon this mans live journal collection of photographs and they are unbelievable. His name, at least online is Huan Carlos and I believe he lives in Moscow. Other then that most of his site is written in Russian which I can't read. I wish I knew where the photographs were taken. Many are of abandoned buildings. The two above are from a series he calls 'Ocean 1'. To really appreciate his photographs visit his site where the detail in the photographs is much more apparent in the larger versions.