Bright, bright day.

Bright, bright day. Photographs and essay by Andrey Tarkovsky. Introduction by Andrey A. Tarkovsky (Jr.). Polaroids edited by Stephen Gill. White Space Gallery and The Tarkovsky Foundation, 2007. English language and Russian language editions. 128 pp., 65 colour illustrations and 13 duotones., 81,2x101,2". Found via Emmanouil Zachariadis.

'Bright, bright day' is a wonderful collection of polaroid photographs taken by the great Soviet and Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986).

See the portfolio here. Read more here, here, here and here for example.


From the introduction of 'Bright, bright day':

"It is not easy for me to talk dispassionately about the photographs in this book, let alone discuss their historical or artistic merit. Each time I look at them, I feel these pictures have an amazing, unique, inner energy; I am drawn as by a magnet back into my past, into the forgotten, distant world of my childhood, which all of a sudden springs up vividly all around me. I seem to be walking along with the feel of dry, yellowing grass underfoot, and the heady, overripe smell of autumn mist; a bend in the river gleams down below, and further on, above the river, is our country house, where it’s warm and cosy, and where they’re still expecting me …

[...]

However personal these photographs are, I am sure that everyone who sees them will appreciate them and be able to relate to them. Whether he was working with Polaroid or cinema film my Father created artistic images, the power of which lies in their direct impact, in the way creator and viewer become spiritually as one.

As he himself said, ‘An image is not some idea as expressed by the director, but an entire world reflected in a drop of water. In a single drop of water!’ "