'Ready to Man the Barricades (Ukraine)'

Pro-EU Ukrainian protestors in tens to hundreds of thousands mass in

central Kyiv, and thousands to tens of thousands have barricaded Kyiv's

downtown area in a tent city and taken it over, but presently peacefully,

orderly and well-kept. (I do NOT take sides in this dispute about whether

Ukraine aligns itself with Russia or the European Union; I am neutral.

The issue is for Ukrainians to decide for themselves. I am a

photographer, and I take photographs, not sides.) Your ratings,

critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, very critically or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful

and constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge

to help improve my photography. (Please do not ask me to take sides;

I will not). Thanks! Please appreciate my viewpoint! john

This man has what appears to be an axe on his side at his belt.

His head is covered by a home-made balaclava, a knit affair with torn out areas for his eyes, nose, and mouth.

Balaclavas are handy for citizens who fear reprisals if identified and their side does not prevail, but the vast, vast bulk of demonstrators do not wear them at all -- and for those who have them, nearly all have them 'down' so their faces are visible.

When times were more violent in past months when I was absent, the use of balaclavas may have been seen to be more essential.   There have been at least four deaths, but presently calm prevails and NO sign of police/militia anywhere near the very heavily barricaded tent city/downtown area (that may change in a moment's notice, depending, of course).

Note:  I AM A PHOTO ARTIST -- PHOTOGRAPHER, NOT A POLITICAL ACTIVIST OR PARTISAN.  I DO NOT TAKE SIDES IN THIS DISPUTE.  I ONLY HOPE TO TAKE GOOD PHOTOS.  jc

john

John (Crosley)

Drew, thanks for the vote of confidence.  Even if you cannot write because of your issues, I know you know good composition and appreciate an interesting photo, and to me this has both of those.  I'm no James Nachtway (he got shot in Thailand a week ago, through and through his leg I think and the same day was back photographing). 

I've been shot too, but when I was shot, I had no film in my camera or the events that evening/morning and the next few days (no film still) might have earned me a Pulitzer -- really, they were just amazing, and even carried on the national news for a weekend WITHOUT photos, naming me, as the center of the first incident that started a large chain of events that ended up in deaths and race riots in a run-down but large East Coast city of moderate to large size.

I'm always delighted to see an exclamation point (or several) and your name attached, following posting of one of my photos.

By the way, after you've seen this photo, don't you get the feeling that you've actually experienced this place, and it's more than a little other worldly or surreal, being in the heart of a major world metropolis and all?

Thank you so much.

john

John (Crosley)

He could just as well be a City Worker from what can be discerned from the photo.

From what is going on in Keiv on TV you are missing the dramatic.

It went from almost carnival-like to the deadliest, bloodiest day since Ukraine became a nation overnight from Sunday to Monday.

It was safe for kiddies the day this was taken late last week.

Street vendors were present nearby

Costumed characters were plying their trade for the crowds; take a photo of this plush costumed character, pay him/her some money and get a schmaltzy photo of the center for a souvenir, just like in the summer, but this time with an entire tent encampment in the background and protester propaganda festooned everywhere.

Face masks were off and kiddies were present.

However, to a wide-eyed semi-pro or photographer from Great Britain who wondered aloud to me when I met him at 'how friendly the people are' and 'how safe it all seems', I told him that by the time the Olympics were over or shortly thereafter, there would be a confrontation and lives would possibly be lost, but I said to him, I dearly hoped I would be wrong, and that perhaps reason would prevail.

I urged him to be VERY CAREFUL, and said I would be.

I am neutral and repeat that at every opportunity.

I ask for nothing except a good photograph -- take nothing and give nothing, but the people (like most all Ukrainians) were quite friendly. 

However, I recognized the potential for violence, having been in campus riots, race riots and in the Viet Nam war, all with a camera.  A police sweep in the riots and disturbances in times past I counseled that British resident/international photographer always was an inevitability, and there are always seem to be some prechosen 'targets' I told this photographer with the very expensive camera who told all who would listen he 'traveled the world taking photos'.

Please see close-up of THE SAME MAN pictured here, just above (currently in another folder) this in my portfolio, only this time a close-up, and look at his eyes.  You can see the hardness and determination that is missing from this photo as well as his weariness.

The New York Times seems to say (and the US Ambassador too, in a tweet) that the protesters left their encampment, and that was the precipitator, as they attacked ruling party headquarters.

Please see the photo I just added.

They shut down the Metro at 4:30 p.m.; there was no way to get there if I wanted, but it was incredibly fluid and dangerous.   I was a pedestrian struck by a truck in January limiting my mobility, so in addition to the dangers of being in a mob, I would have been incredibly vulnerable if I had been in the way of a sweep.

Not only was it the deadliest day in the history of modern-day Ukraine Monday; I hope you'll excuse me if there are no action shots; I'm still slowly recovering from that accident, and it's even hard to get out and walk any distance.

Finally, I gave up dodging Molotov cocktails and bullets a long time ago. I got shot, medically evacuated from Viet Nam, consoled cops who shot race rioters who attacked them, was attacked by the same rioters, (on account of my skin color only then), and lived in New York City at a time when everyone carried a knife or box cutter in their pocket and quadruple locked their front door because of the danger of getting one's door bashed in by brash burglars on a 'hot prowl'.

I used to walk as a white man through Harlem just to tutor my students, and THAT was incredibly dangerous -- one HAD to have street skills at that time.  Just to be white in most parts of Harlem, and I was in the harshest, was considered an invitation to get stomped or mugged!

I'm still alive, and I'd like to keep it that way.

So, I don't go for action shots; I leave that to the action junkie news photographers; I consider myself an 'artist' photographer, and while occasionally it may intersect with the 'news', that's only occasionally, and I don't go looking for that and often consciously avoid it.

I really had a honest-to-gosh one-time chance at a Pulitzer when I first got a camera, and had no film for my camera in hand as I underwent three or four days of the most amazing photographic experiences around the time of the Martin Luther King assassination -- things that reduced to a screenplay would make a wonderful movie!

john

John (Crosley)

It should read 'semi-pro or pro photographer' (editing window closed when I finished editing).

john

John (Crosley)

The background building in this photo, the Ukrainian Trade Union Building for Ukraine, served as a headquarters for the protesters AND a clnic for injured, but about two days ago, during a conflict, it was gutted by fire.

Protesters subsequently invaded the huge Kyiv Post Office Building, behind this photographer, and occupied it, according to news reports.

The information about the fire has been viewed on Internet TV feed and on all news accounts from NY Times, Kyiv Post and nearly all other reliable sources. 

john

John (Crosley)

Arab Spring. Next stop?

This is such a powerful image of human struggle. I hate saying this when war is the context, the composition is absolutely superb.

I understand your hesitancy, yet some of James Nachtwey's best photos (besides showing loads of emotion which this does not) often have absolutely terrific composition.

(In no other way should his name and mine appear in the same comment however, as he's in a class by himself, and I'm merely, well . . . me . . . and although I've seen conflict (a few), I couldn't warrant carrying his CD or SD chips, or his camera batteries (presuming he's shooting digital now, or his film canisters, in former times.)

That being said, it almost always is my tendency when I have even an extra second or sometimes even a fraction (or even as today when previsualizing each scene, as I did numerous times today -- several hundred times to be more accurate) to scope out how I might make most frames into compositions.

This guy was antsy to move on, I had stopped him, he was devoted to his cause so waited while I backed up and saw the possibilities with the concrete walls on the sides, and immediately 'made a composition'.

As luck would have it, the only building that burned in all of Kyiv, is the direct background building (The Trades Union Building of Ukraine), which is now blackened and in which about six persons died, trapped inside when it burned, after the dreaded riot police (Berkut) briefly overran the protesters, but later were driven back (but did not set these tents on fire apparently either not reaching the tents or being too busy or not having orders to do such destruction, though that seems 'out of character' given their actions and reputation, but I was not there, and frankly, since I left Dnipropetrovs'k, where Berkut used to patrol the town square and I used to josh with them innocently (despite warnings from towns people), I know that the Berkut were not bad people in all circumstances . . . . but they had a job to do, and some relished that job maybe way too much . . . .

In Dnipropetrovs'k, one time police 'saved my bacon' which I've written about, and they were fair to me and the perpetrator (whom I asked them to let go without charges after I think they dispensed some 'justice' inside the jail, as he 'apologized profusely (in English no less which I am sure he didn't understand) to me.

********

I'm not anti-police, anti-government in all circumstances, and not anti-everything.  The problem in Crimea between governments is apparently armed gangs of thugs while Crimea awaits police and Russian law, and in the meantime, there are journalists (I hear) who disappear, and some reappear and some so far haven't, as well as others . . . police generally prevent such things from happening no matter what nation they answer to, and are essential.  (In other words, I'm practical, and careful for my own safety, . . . and wish there be police to protect me from lawless individuals.)

********

I think what sets apart any photograph, as HCB so famously and wonderfully showed us, was to make an 'ordinary' photograph' become a little more than 'ordinary' by 'seeing'  and 'making' a composition out of it.

It was meeting the man and 'seeing' the wonderful compositions of Cartier-Bresson when I was 22 in  San Francisco (when I didn't know who this great man was I was sent to meet, but marveled at his photographs) that drove me literally to give up for most of my lifetime dreams of being a photographic 'great'. 

Good thing, too, as HCB told me he was having a hard time getting work, and although I hadn't a clue who this French guy who spoke excellent English was, he had a museum full of the most wonderful photographs I could imagine (and still could imagine to this day.

Seeing those photos and knowing there existed one man who could make so many wonderful photos - hundreds of them all better than any of mine, was a turning point in my life, not so much for meeting him,because in seeing his photos, which made mine (which were good), pale by comparison, for then I knew my place in photo history . . . . and went on to other things, discouraged at having seen the truth about my photographic dreams.

Like Nachtwey, there again is no reason my name and HCB's should be mentioned in the same comment, except I'm an admirer and 'student' of both of them and their work, view their work frequently (never too much), and pretend to myself I learn from them (and Salgado too, another great 'artist' in a class by himself, especially when it comes to 'large' compositions and his use of 'tonalities' to create great 'art' from such things as human toil and suffering -- something Nachtwey did in photographing sulfur mining, which you can see him doing, kerchief over his face, in part of the film 'War Photographer' which deals with labor and poverty -- other facets of his work than conflict alone).

Starvy, I treasure your comment; I'm sure it was honestly made, and I value it all the more for that. 

This photo was not highly rated when exposed for rates, but somehow worked itself into the 'crawl' at the top of the page, maybe because it's topical. 

However, I always liked it; in color, it's somewhat different, as the tent is brown/khaki color and the scene is much lighter so more contrast exists between the man and the tent, which stands out more because it is so much lighter in the color version.

That's one instance of a color photo and a black and white photo each being different, and each one being able to 'stand on its own' while portraying the same scene but appearing quite different to the viewer.

Best wishes, Starvy, and thanks for making my day.

john

John (Crosley)