The medium-format Kiev 6S, instead of the usual 12-13 frames per 120 film, produced 9-10, and the last photo turned out to be cropped, with an unpredictable vertical format and jagged edges. I didn’t know in advance which frame would turn out to be this “incomplete” one, so I shot as a full—fledged square and got a piece of the picture, sometimes absurdly cropped. 

I felt an unkind but very funny sarcasm in this: as if you were preparing for a philosophical report with stone seriousness, and a buffoon interrupted you, and he did it so aptly that the audience laughed, and you were speechless.

A technical defect often becomes an independent art over time — and “pruning” is no exception. Their ironic charm was not in pseudo-deception or invented elitism, but in honest mockery of others' and their own seriousness. For me, it was the perfect antidote to the lengthy reflections and mystical searches that gave birth to the “Moonpiece”