Product Description

"Satellites" is the culmination of Jonas Bendiksen's
fascinating seven-year photographic journey through unrecognized countries,
enclaves, and isolated communities on the periphery of the former Soviet
Union. From Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Siberia, he
takes us into little known places where the stark legacy of the Soviet
collapse continues to evolve: Transdniester, Abkhazia and Nagorno Karabakh,
the Ferghana Valley, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the spaceship crash
zones on the near the Kazakh steppes. In these outposts, the transition to
the post-communist world order brought mixed results - some lost everything
to bloody civil wars, while others find themselves in tiny pariah states
that remain all but closed to the outside world. Some evolved peculiar
self-styled brands of capitalism, others simply packed their bags and
left.

15 years after the fall of the USSR, Bendiksen's haunting photographs and
text explore these restless territories' search for historical, religious
and ideological identity, and forms a timely look into unfinished chapters
of Soviet history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98092 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 152 pages

Adam Goldman, The Associated Press
"The nasty realities of a collapsed empire (...) falls to
Bendiksen to chronicle.
He does so expertly, the sadness inescapable."

From the Back Cover
Satellites is a compelling journey through unrecognized
countries and isolated regions in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the
Caucasus and Siberia. In this lyrical but unsentimental collection of
photographs, Jonas Bendiksen takes us into the little-known worlds of
Transdniester, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Ferghana Valley, the Jewish
Autonomous Region, and the spaceship crash zones near the Kazakh Steppe,
and in the process reveals that the narrative of the Soviet collapse
continues to evolve.

About the Author
Norwegian photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen joined Magnum Photos
in 2004. He started his career in 1998, when he moved to Russia at the age
of twenty. He spent the next seven years roaming the outer fringes of the
former Soviet Empire, focusing on enclaves, isolated communities and
unrecognized countries.

He currently lives in New York with his wife Laara and son Milo.

Customer Reviews

Great idea, bad photographies
I bought the book because the project seemed very interesting. However, I ended up being really upset with having spent my money in it.
For a book classified as a photography book, the stories about the locations were great. Unfortunately, the quality and detail of the pictures is really bad. In fact, the only good picture is the one on the cover. The rest, are pretty bad. I wonder how the author managed to get it published.

satellites
This is a quirky photographic account of 6 areas of the old Soviet Union. Allthe pages are unnumbered and printed on black paper. There are 2 pages of text for each area which is reasonably informative but should havebeen considerably expanded to give amore complete picture.The major failing of this book is the extremely poor quality of the pictures the majority of which are out of focus or seem to have been taken ith a red filter.This does not create the atmosphere which Ithink was intended.The few picrures in focus are quite good.Abook more noted for its fults than its good points.

The best photography I've seen since "The Americans"
I am an avid collector of documentary photography books, as well as being a documentary photographer myself.

This book is amongst the best I have seen in recent years, and offers a haunting insight into the ever lasting effects of the iron curtain. Bendikson's use of colour is phenomenal.