Critics often deride the city as the People’s Republic of Charlottesville. Still, we were a little taken aback to see the mug of Russian President [now Prime Minister] Vladimir Putin hanging in the Downtown Transit Center across from City Hall– until we remembered it was the Festival of the Photograph. The exhibit is called “Big Shots,” by Platon, and it includes the crotch-centric photo of Bill Clinton that was on the cover of Esquire in 2000.