Making Soviets Say ‘Cheese’ : Album Is a Journalistic Coup for Photographer

Rick Smolan couldn’t believe it.

He’d just been on the “Michael Jackson Show” promoting “A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union” (Collins Publishers)--a lavish coffee-table book that’s being touted as “the publishing event of the year,” “the most ambitious photographic project ever mounted in the Soviet Union,” “the most comprehensive visual record of life in the Soviet Union ever published in the West”; a project that sent 100 internationally known photographers into military academies, train stations, airports, and a nuclear power plant--sites in the Soviet Union off limits to journalists for decades.

And what did callers on the popular radio talk show want to know?

Could they bring their dogs into the Soviet Union if they visited?

Striding through the lobby of the swank Le Mondrian Hotel with George Steinmetz, a “Day in the Life” photographer, Smolan shook his head and laughed. After three years of negotiating with the Soviets for permission to do the book, and six weeks in the Soviet Union haggling with press officials over what the photographers would be allowed to shoot, he’s not about to lose his sense of humor now.

Dressed in black jeans, black jacket, black tennis shoes and a white shirt, the 38-year-old photographer hardly looks the part of a seasoned diplomat or a publishing executive. His long brown hair, wire-rim glasses and mustache don’t fit the image, either. But Smolan is obviously talented at both. “A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union” is the sixth in a series of “Day in the Life” publications he’s organized with David Cohen, president of the United States branch of the British publisher. And it follows the astonishing success of last year’s “A Day in the Life of America,” which sold nearly 1 million copies, and for more than 40 weeks dominated the New York Times best-seller list.

But Smolan, who’s trotted around the globe for Time, Newsweek, Geo and other publications as a photojournalist, and sees the “Day in the Life” projects--the others were done in Japan, Australia, Hawaii and Canada--as something of a “weeklong party” for his solitary colleagues, is surprisingly glib about the “America” book’s success.

“A lot of people bought ‘America’ without knowing what was in it,” he said over a hurried lunch of cold salmon and asparagus in the hotel restaurant. “I think a lot of companies, the chairman got a copy from United Airlines (a sponsor of the project) as a gift, and said, ‘Hey, go out and buy 100 copies of these things and we’ll just give them out.’ ”

Ironically, though the America project presented few of the logistical hassles involved in producing the Russia book, Smolan wasn’t happy with it. “A lot of the European photographers were looking for freaks--for the exceptions to the norm,” he said. “They were into this sort of line-up-against-the-wall-and-stare-at-the-camera, which I hate. Seventy people got nothing in that book. I didn’t like the ‘America’ book probably because I’d seen so many bad pictures.”

The Soviet Union shoot took place last May 15. Even though photographers had to contend with enormous language and cultural barriers, edgy Soviet guides and endless restrictions, Smolan thinks that “A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union” turned out much better than the book about America. “The photographers were a lot more psyched for it. A lot of them kept poking at their guides and having fights. ‘There’s a line of people waiting at that liquor store. Let’s stop the car.’ It seemed like about 75% of them got away with whatever they tried to do, and about 25% ran into problems.”

That’s putting it mildly. Los Angeles photographer Douglas Kirkland was detained in an isolation chamber in Siberia for nearly an hour after an airline passenger reported that he’d been taking pictures out the window of a plane.

But the biggest problem for Western photographers was getting around their Soviet translators and guides. “In the Soviet Union, I found it hard to be spontaneous,” said Steinmetz, who was assigned to photograph the oil fields of Baku. Or as the 30-year-old photographer quipped: “the Houston of the Soviet Union.”

“There was an oil field from the turn of the century,” he recalled, “It was a classic case of overexploitation. They didn’t want me to photograph it because it was from the Czarist era and considered kind of an eyesore. When I started to take pictures, they shouted at me to get back in the car.” Steinmetz was so determined that he sneaked out of his hotel at 5:30 the next morning, took a cab to the field and got the shot, even though his 24 hours, the time allotted for shooting, were up.

Although photographers had specific assignments, Smolan admits that several bent the rules. Gary Eisenberg, for one, shot a black and white photo of Vladimir Slepak and his wife, Mariya--two refuseniks.

“We had a number of photographers who were like free agents,” Smolan said. “We just purposely told the Soviets they were going to be doing one thing that day, and they did something else.

“In the United States, it seems you can photograph anything you want until somebody comes along and tells you to stop. In the Soviet Union, you can’t do anything until somebody gives you permission.”

Indeed, Smolan said, censorship is a problem for even the most casual photographer: “The first thing that happens when you get to the Soviet Union, they give you a little booklet. It says you cannot photograph people in military uniforms, trains, bridges--this whole list of things. And we were allowed to photograph all those things.”

Predictable Images

The “Day in the Life” team--which included 50 Western, 40 Soviet and 10 Eastern Bloc photographers--was given access to more than 80 locations throughout the Soviet Union. And though there are the predictable images of schoolchildren and babushkas , “A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union” represents several journalistic coups. Pulitzer-Prize winner Eddie Adams spent the day inside Vladimir Prison, a medium security facility outside Moscow. Austrian photographer Rudolf Frey visited a nuclear power plant. David Kennerly, a world-renowned photographer for Time, went to Leningrad’s Nakhimov Naval Academy. And American Roger Ressmeyer was allowed into Star City, the training center near Moscow for young Soviet cosmonauts.

But Smolan doesn’t have any illusions about why, after three years of polite but firm disinterest, the Soviets finally approved the project last year. “The Russians let us in knowing that this was their 70th anniversary,” he said. “It wasn’t like a complete accident.”

Before then, Smolan and Cohen approached Soviet Embassy officials in Washington. They gave earlier “Day in the Life” books to the Russian ambassador. They had Time magazine picture editor Arnold Drapkin and other Western journalists on good terms with the Soviets lobbying on their behalf. They even sent copies of “America” to Mikhail Gorbachev. “The trouble is, we never knew if the books got there,” Smolan said. “We found out he actually got the ‘America’ book when a group of American schoolchildren went over and handed it to him as a Christmas present.” Not long after, Smolan got a call from the Soviet Embassy and the project was on.

But it’s clear that working with the Soviets was a major headache for Smolan. Assigned to work with Novosti, the official Soviet press agency, Smolan found himself constantly struggling to maintain editorial control.

“They had this ridiculous list of things they were asking for,” he said. “They wanted every roll of film as it came out of each photographer’s camera to be handed to a Soviet guide or assistant. Like sure, right. So every time they’d shoot anything controversial, the film would disappear. They wanted all the film to be developed in the Soviet Union.” Smolan finessed that by telling his hosts that the film could only be processed in special laboratories--none of which existed in Russia.

In short, “the whole thing was like a card game,” Smolan said of the negotiations. “ ‘We’ll trade you the Jewish autonomous state for a nuclear power plant.’ ”

Take the photo assignments for instance: “They gave us a list of about 300 possible ideas. We came up with a list of another 300. Then out of those 600, we whittled 100 assignments out of it.”

Or their request to visit certain locations: “We wanted to get into areas of the country they had never let foreigners go into before. They let us go to 30 of those areas, but we asked for like 70.”

Even the ratio of Western photographers to Eastern Bloc photographers was an issue: “The Russians wanted to have 75 Soviet and 25 foreign photographers, which would have been a lot more manageable for them. We just said we wouldn’t do it. We finally compromised on 50-50, which I still wasn’t happy with.”

Novosti also had veto power over the list of Western photographers, and ended up rejecting seven of them. “It was a very strange group of people they turned down,” Smolan said. “David Burnett, who had been in the Soviet Union. David Kennerly, who later on was approved only because Time put a lot of pressure on them. All we could figure was that 90% of them had been in the Soviet Union before, and maybe they were worried these guys would lose their guides and have their own contacts.”

Nonetheless, Smolan clearly feels it was worth all the trouble. “I think we all felt this was going to be a big set up. The fact we were being allowed in, we thought we were going to be used. I think people were caught off guard by the genuine warmth of the people they were photographing.”

The Soviets are free to publish their own version of “A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union.” And a few weeks ago, Smolan flew to Russia to show Soviet officials the book.

“They all wanted to take it home and look at it before they commented on it. When they came back the next day, they said, ‘I like the book very much, but my wife . . .’ ” Smolan laughed. “They used their wives as a polite way of criticizing it.

“Some of the Westerners who’ve seen it think the book is too pretty, and the Soviets think it’s too ugly. They say ‘It makes us look shabby.’ The thing we’ve always said to people is, it’s not supposed to be the definitive book on the Soviet Union. It’s just one day through the eyes of 100 very talented men and women.”