Why are Soviet era photos so ???

[Henry Sakaida]

Have you ever noticed the poor quality of Soviet era photos reproduced in their books and magazines? I have a bunch of books published in the 1960s and 1970s and some of the photos in them look so bad, I am wondering if they aren't pencil drawings or ??? See attached. To my eyes, these 2 photos just don't seem "real." The one where a soldier is raising a flag looks almost cartoonish.

Is it the old Soviet printing press technology which makes their photos look so bad? Sometimes, I wonder if they took a nice original photo, laid some tracing paper over the photo, and then copied the original in pencil, and submitted that for publication!

If any of you have answers, I'm dying to know!!!
Thank you.

HENRY

[desantnik]

Henry good question - I've wondered that too.

I think a contributing (or exacerbating?) factor may be that only officiallly approved photos (and printed matter for that fact) could be used in publications. In that the State controlled the entire information process from photography to censorship to publishing we don't see any "unpublished" or newly discovered from the war, or other unpleasant periods such as the Ukrainian famine, Katyn massacre, etc.

If a publisher knew an image was officially sanctioned, but only a second, third, or higher-hand copy of it was available, the publisher could use the image to get the point across, but was captive by the repetively used, poor copy.

Only my guess...

[charlet]

the photos were often heavily modified with the visages painted to modify or hide attitudes and defaults (see the second picture, the two soldiers holding the flag)

[CtahhR]

Ask the north Koreans....

Their speciality is teeth.

[medals73]

While Cold-War conspiracy theories might hold some water, there might be a more practical issue: In a pre-Photoshop age and a time of hot-metal printing methods, photos that were "sharpened" and detailed might just have been easier to reproduce. Sketches might print better than photos, but hybrids might be the best of all?

[Greg Collins]

Without getting too technical, and conspiracy theories aside, the original photo- the quality and range of tones (from black to white) combined with the method, and constraints, of the reproduction may be the key here.

In the first photo, while the aircraft in the background was probably fine, the subject was probably very dark- looks as though he was "backlit". Answer: over expose the print, making the whole thing lighter and have a retoucher mechanically bring the details back into the image. Combine this with a very quick deadline and a very coarse half-tone (say for newspaper reproduction) and, years later, reshooting that half-tone for slicker paper (in a book) and voila! You have this type of image.

Remember, everything that is done to an image from the selection of the film, to the processing, to the paper it's printed on, to the quality of reproduction, etc., etc. is going to degrade it from the image you actually saw with your eye which, in concert with your brain, continually corrected the image's exposure "flaws" as you were lining it up with the camera.

Good photography, especially when film was the medium, and a knowledge of the printing processes requires a great deal of study and experience... and every photographer has to begin somewhere.

[Henry Sakaida]

Wow! Thank you all for your imput! This mystery has been bugging me for over 30 years! I sort of knew it had to do with some photographic process.
My mind is finally in low gear and at rest.

HENRY