The photograph below is a composite of two photos taken by famous Soviet combat photographer Yevgeny Khaldei that he titled “Reindeer Yasha beyond the Arctic Circle,” World War II, Murmansk Area, USSR, c. 1941.
Khaldei captioned the image as follows (translated from the Russian): “Soviet Air Force planes bomb a hillside while a shell-shocked reindeer looks on. The stark interface between the killing machines of man and the grandeur and beauty of the natural environment was not ‘natural.'”
Khaldei frequently staged or manipulated his photos as here – as he said, defending the practice – “to enhance and strengthen the ‘truth’ of the visual moment.” While one can imagine such juxtapositions happening naturally, one wonders how Khaldei determined that the reindeer was “shell-shocked.”
