Street Shot Sundays Story & Stats

Story:

This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken at Gorky Park in Moscow, Russia. Unless you’re from anywhere around Russia, odds are you’re wondering what is up with that post title. Well, “Kidnapping, Caucasian Style” is the name of a 1967 Soviet comedy film that revolves around bride kidnapping, an old tradition that used to exist in the Northern Caucasus. And that backdrop is from the movie. None of these details I knew at the time, but have since been informed thanks to the power of social media photo sharing.

When I took this shot, I was walking through Gorky Park and noticed this strange and somewhat randomly placed backdrop in the middle of the park. Gorky Park is the most famous park in Russia and was the first of its kind in the Soviet Union. It’s gigantic and contains everything you could imagine and more, from fair rides and food stands to lake boat rides and a skate park. It attracts mostly locals too so it’s a good spot to capture some of the non-tourist side of Moscow life.

I first noticed a couple of workers planting in the garden by this humorous back drop and walked over to take a few photos. As I walked over, a small group of older women came over and started laughing at what they saw. One of them excitedly ran over to have her photo taken with the two cut outs and as she began to walk away, it almost looked like she was walking out of the scene. Her outfit even went along with it, while the vegetation in the fake background blended with the park background. So I took the photo just as she stepped off and the gardener came into the scene with more plants. I later saw the woman’s eyes were closed, which is usually a bad thing, but in this case it kinda works for me with a similar expression to the man behind to her left, and an unreal look.

Now that I know about the movie, though, I guess it would have been better if she had been dressed as a bride. Something that really isn’t too uncommon to find walking around Moscow :)

Stats:

Camera: Fujifilm Xpro1
Lens: Fujinon XF 18mm 
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm full frame equivalent)
Aperture: f/10
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 1600