Dmitri Baltermants, Russian, 1912–1990
The one that got away: M. A. Koslov engages in story-telling on a break between battles
Negative about 1945; print 2003
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 16 x 20 in.
Purchased through a gift from Harley and Stephen C. Osman, Class of 1956, Tuck 1957; PH.2003.56.73
Dmitri Baltermants was a Soviet war photographer interested in capturing more than just the action of war. In this photograph, he shows a group of World War II soldiers gathered under a covered archway, on break from their duties. To the amusement of his audience, storyteller M. A. Koslov spreads his arms out wide, as if showing the size of a fish that eluded his grasp. Behind them, ruins and debris from an earlier battle remind us that the soldiers are still in a time and place of war. Baltermants’s vantage point from behind the heads of a few soldiers feels almost intrusive, as if the viewer, as an outsider, is not allowed access into the group’s space, story, and sense of camaraderie.