Photographing Things That Matter
And at the drop of a hat the world is turned upside down, a consensus that goes back decades is shattered whilst we stand there stunned. Needless to say, we are watching history unfold before our eyes. For some time now I’ve been inspired by Steve McCurry’s work for National Geographic where he would often go into dangerous parts the Middle East & Asia with his camera to show the world what was really happening amongst the chaos. His photo of the Afghan girl is perhaps one of the most famous photos in the world and his stories and photos from the Gulf War are as haunting as they are terrifying. With myself being far away from the front lines of this new conflict there was no way I could hope to emulate the impact his work had, but I thought that I could record a small piece of current events closer to home. Protests were quickly brewing in London (and in capitals across the West) and I decided to head down on the Friday, the day after the invasion.
First of all, I headed to the Ukrainian Embassy to see if anything was happening there. Apart from a few floral tributes there was hardly a hint of activity. I could see a few people standing around inside, and I could only dread to think what they must have been discussing at that moment. Able to do little in the UK whilst their friends and relatives had to face the horrors of war hundreds of miles away. I believe there is more activity there now as people look to sign up as part of a foreign legion to fight for Ukraine, much like what happened during the Spanish Civil War. This war seemingly is just as much about ideology as it is about territory.
After a quick look at the statue of St. Volodymyr, which also had floral tributes at its base, I headed over to the Belarussian embassy but again was greeted by inactivity and it wasn’t long until I was headed to my next destination, the Russian embassy. Unsurprisingly this was where the small group of protestors were, having been made to stand on the other side of the road by the police so as not to block traffic. Business was carrying on as usual at the Embassy with people coming and going, although one man, who wasn’t Russian, was sworn out by someone standing outside leading to a short but heated argument in the street. Another man confronted the police on why the protestors were being forced onto the other side of the road. I spoke to the officers afterwards and they said there hadn’t been any real disruptions beyond a few eggs being thrown the day before.
The protestors were mostly a mixture of British and Ukrainians but there were a couple of Russians there as well to make their anti-war stance known. I spoke to one of them who was very visibly upset and said that both the expat community and the people she knew back home were bewildered and confused about the war and didn’t want it to happen. Interestingly when I asked her about Navalny (the main opposition figurehead) she said that he was a very divisive figure who she hadn’t personally supported due to his ‘extremism’. She said his willingness to work with virtually anyone as long as they were against Putin made him friends with some unsavoury characters, which in turn put a lot of people off. Whether more Russians will start to overlook this as this situation deteriorates remains to be seen, as ever things are never entirely clear cut.
On my way out I saw one British woman try to hand out Kitkats to the Ukrainians as a small way of showing solidarity, for many people it is difficult to see what they can otherwise personally contribute. The main protest however was to be outside of Downing Street in the evening where much larger numbers of people would gather to make their voices heard. Again, this was mostly Ukrainians but there were not only a notable number of British people but also Georgians and Lithuanians waving their flags in solidarity. Georgia and the Baltic States are also no strangers to Russian antagonism and so it was unsurprising to see their presence there.
When I arrived at about 5pm the numbers of people there must have been in the hundreds but when I left two hours later it looked more like a couple of thousand. With much bigger numbers subsequently seen over the weekend, though I wasn’t there. The protest was well organised with Ukrainian marshals in high-vis jackets helping the police to direct people and keep the road clear for buses as they came through. At the centre of the protest was the microphone used for a continuous stream of speeches and chanting. Children were front and centre, trying to send a message to the world who would suffer the most in such a conflict.
I did also manage to speak to a Ukrainian man and his wife about the situation back home. His family lived out in the West away from the worst of the fighting whilst her family were stuck in Kyiv. They were still able to make contact, but the concern had been that the internet and phone lines could go down at any moment. When I asked him about the Ukrainian feeling towards Russia, he said he himself had served in the Soviet Army alongside many Russians and worked with others after his service ended. However, once the events of 2014 occurred and the annexation of Crimea, they all stopped talking to him (he made it clear it wasn’t the other way around). He concluded: ‘We can’t be friends anymore. If you kill my people, you are the enemy.’ Emblematic of the bitter sentiment that now exists between two peoples that were once very close.
As with the lady who was handing out KitKats, I am left to wonder what I can really to do help the situation if anything at all. But as someone who spends most of his time taking pictures of cars for a living it was good to take the time to photograph something that really did matter. To record this small slither of history and show others the levels of support and solidarity the people of Ukraine are receiving across the Western World. Maybe it won’t amount to anything but at least with it being recorded it won’t be forgotten.
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