"'Molotov Cocktails' At the Ready" Behind the Barricades, Kyiv, Ukraine

This bedraggled cardboard box is loaded with cheap beer bottles pre-

loaded with gasoline (petrol) and necks stuffed with pieces of carpet,

cloth, and other absorbent and flammable material that will act as

fuses for these 'fire bombs' popularly known since before World War

II as 'Molotov Cocktails' and discovered behind a protester barricade

in Kyiv, Ukraine. They were so named by Finns, as a mock toward

the Soviet Defense Minister whose forces invaded Finland in 1939.

The Soviet Union also dropped bombs on the Finns which the Finns

sarcastically dubbed 'Soviet Bread Baskets' (source, Wikipedia).

The term 'Molotov Cocktail' now is a generic term for 'petrol/gasoline

bomb' made ultra cheaply. 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. (This photo submitted for photographic

criticism only; not for any political agenda, of which I espouse none).

Thanks! john

This photo may be unique; it was taken in a sealed area where I was given brief permission to walk about for a couple of minutes - I am not sure other photographers have such a photo -- this box's storage area, while open was in a secured area.

However, the use of firebombs (Molotov cocktails) by protesters, was widely known.  The Wikipedia article illustrating and defining 'Molotov Cocktail' is illustrated with a photo of Kyiv protesters employing such devices while lighted.

These are 'reserves', and I no longer have access to this secure area to know if they are still there.

Housewives told media they made such things at home from spare bottles and schlepped them by hand across Kyiv to back protesters, since the Metro and transportation was shut down, as a measure of support -- even women who otherwise had stated they previously had been nonpartisan and apolitical.

john

John (Crosley)

The question with most digital captures is whether to produce and post them as color or black and white.

Some photos are best displayed as black and white - such photos often have graphic and/or tonal elements that show best and are enhanced by the black and white treatment.

This photo, however, clearly was best shown in color, in part because of the enormous number of contrasts with the box and within the box between the colored bottles and the colored swatches of fabric fuses leading into the petrol inside each 'bomb'.

This capture, desaturated, which I have done, loses much of those internal contrasts, and becomes less clear and more 'muddied' in its message.

While B&W treatment still shows 'petrol bombs' or 'Molotov cocktails' clearly, the color treatment has 'impact' which just fails in the black and white treatment.

This is one example of a photo that excels in color exposition, in my view, but could be displayed as black and white, because it still has some impact or information value in black and white.

It's just that the color treatment is clearly favored, in my view.

I post this as part of a long, continuing discussion about whether and which photos are 'color dependent' -- that is whether a photo can be treated or posted for best exposition color, black and white, or as 'black and white or color' (equally).

For me, for this photo, color exposition clearly won out.

In other photos, detrimental or deleterious lighting or other problems may rule out exposition in color, or a photo may show equally well in color or black and white, or the same photo may show well as black and white and color, BUT the same photo may LOOK DIFFERENT depending on whether it's shown in color or black and white.

john

John (Crosley)

Answers for those interested in detail.

How many people have ever seen a Molotov Cocktail (or a photo of one) in detail?  I'm willing to bet very few, unless they've seen one in lighted being prepared to be thrown or actually being thrown or smashing throwing fire.  

In the same vein, how many people could guess that one could put about 30+ 'Molotov Cocktails' filled with gasoline/petrol and fabric fuses in a corrugated board box (cardboard box).

I have not counted the exact number of such firebomb bottles in this box.    How many firebombs are in the box exactly?

john

John (Crosley)

You got it!

Better that day, however.

If the Russians come beyond the East, there's boxes and boxes and boxes and housewives to make them probably to the end of time.

john

John (Crosley)

Not to take away from the photo but scary? Try Syria, Nigeria, Afganastan. Ukraine is a piece of cake.

I was shot in the aftermath of the Martin Luther King assassination amid a violent racial incident as a 'mostly' bystander.

Later, after recovering (mostly) I went to Viet Nam, and stayed with a camera and freelanced.

I saw more bullets fired there any one minute from one machine gun on one hilltop at night (tracer bullets allowed me to see the shooting) than all the bullets fired so far in Ukraine . . . . so you're telling me nothing new about deadliness.

In fact many nights I saw more bomb blasts reflect off the jungle sky in one night than all the bullets fired at Maidan, Kyiv.

I survived Viet Nam as a civilian photographer with camera, despite having a grenade explode literally at my feet (thrown by a friendly, too).

I don't want to exaggerate the importance or danger of Kyiv at all -- but it wasn't just the 'Molotov cocktails' but the rooftop snipers for which no one will  take responsibility that caused the vast majority of carnage, and all of the sniper victims I think in one day (maybe two). 

Bodies piled up fast, from not only the protesters, but also from the riot police, and even spectators and passersby, and it's been reported that doctors say the wounds seem alike., suggesting the snipers were indiscriminate, if that line of thought is to be followed or given any credence.

At least it's worth an inquiry.

I had a hamburger at a McDonald's tonight in Kyiv, and after an hour found that the three young men who were sitting at my table -- clean-cut youths from a local university -- actually had been at the protest on the front lines, with one heaving a couple of Molotov cocktails and another throwing stones, (and taking a couple of really good photos with his smart phone).   I didn't question the third, and know enough not to pursue the issue, as it wasn't volunteered.

Unlike the grizzled and/or unshaven, often older men in the tent camps often from remote cities and towns, these guys were not begrizzled, they just saw something they felt had to be done (in their opinions), stepped in, did it, then went back to school when it was over.  No tale telling, no seeking hero worship, but getting a little involved in politics and hoping to save Ukraine, I judged a little naiively, but more than willing to listen and learn, which is all to their credit.

I keep out of arguments -- I have no place in Ukraine politics and no viewpoint to espouse.

It's not my country.  I take photos, and I appreciate great photography from any source.

I also appreciate smart young men trying to do what they think is right.

Whether they're right or wrong, so long as they harm no one and do no evil.

I was just sharing a table, one tried to figure out where I was from, learned USA, talk started, and then after a long time, the stories began to be told, true ones, I am sure, because I saw the photos.

Yes, not exactly a 'piece of cake' but no 'boy soldiers' shooting people indiscriminately or land mines strewn all over to blow the limbs off people (if one disregards the reports the Russians are mining the Crimean 'border'.)

So, Meir, I don't disagree with you at all.

I've seen it far worse.

But a sniper's bullet is just as deadly as a Rwandan machete when it's you as a victim.  I've come real close to being eliminated, but have avoided it -- so far -- and hope to keep it that way.

Here's the 'Ukraine' part of it all:  No one, literally "NO ONE' used this turmoil to loot, vandalize, break windows or get otherwise out of hand.  There are literally NO BROKEN WINDOWS on the main street, Kreshatyk, which is famous throughout Ukraine and full of huge plate glass windows fronting stores full of merchandise.  Store owners, when the going got reall bad, finally shuttered their shops, put butcher paper in the windows' and I cannot remember seeing even one window shattered - not one.

Just like the Metro which has upholstered seats, I have NEVER SEEN ONE METRO SLICED by a vandal's knife.  It just is not in the Ukraine character.

Imagine upholstered (vinyl or some such, but stuffed lightly) seats in the New York City subway escaping vandals throughout the '60s and '70s before the whole borough of Manhattan got gentrified then the gentrification spread to Brooklyn, now the darling of the art, artists and professionals.

Ukrainians don't have lots of good things always, but they know enough not to destroy the good stuff even when they're angry.  The next day they gotta sit in those seats, and if they're sliced or replaced by plastic, who benefits?  And I think peer pressure also stops them cold.  It's just in the national character.

john

John (Crosley)

Amazing photograph snapshotting a frightening moment in modern history. Interesting to see all those trademarked beer bottles turned to something so different than their manufacturers contemplated. Definitely best in color, color for this is the impact choice. Gritty and real. Stay safe now and in the future so I can continue to enjoy your inspiring portfolio. 

Thank you for an inspiring and acknowledging comment.

Of many photos I took, this mostly secreted (because inaccessible) box of Molotov cocktails seemed to me 'important' even after the fact because it 'told the story' of what could have been a larger conflagration and citizens (wives hurried with such boxes across Kyiv saying they never before had contemplated helping a 'cause' before), just stepped in, no matter the risk.

I have met young man after young man, -tens of them - who participated in the riots on the side of the protests, threw rocks, stones or even these incendiary bombs, then a few days later went back to university or their jobs, melting into obscurity with only their girlfriends - some of whom were beside them - to know their part. 

Medical students became 'medics' or ambulance drivers, afraid to take the wounded to hospitals for fear the wounded would 'disappear' until the last, and in fact some ended up in police hands, but some were freed by sympathetic police and ended up back on the battle lines if ambulatory.

A well known coffee shop became a clinic and so with other store fronts, and so on.

Few seem to want to view this photo, and I applaud you for seeing its significance.  Unless there's a new Soviet invasion, things are very, very calm and Spring's coming, the girls are blossoming, throngs are in the streets, and business is returning to a new normalcy, albeit with high inflation until the EU and USA money stabilizes the currency which has lost 20% of more of its value.

Best to you; and thanks for worrying about my safety -- I'm experienced and experienced in being a coward, being no James Nachtwey, though in fact I have been shot and wounded from close up (Martin Luther King assassination aftermath -- Medivacced from Viet Nam as a civilian photographer).

It's just part of what happens sometimes, and one has to accept and minimize the risk, and still try to get the photograph.

Best to you and thanks (from the bottom of my heart).

john

John (Crosley)

Shot is a serious thing. People who get shot go to hospitals. 

I was shot in a racial incident by a black man who assaulted a white man aboard a Penn Central train entering Trenton, N.J. on his way (as was I) to the Washington, D.C. riots, I to take photos, and he to shoot 'em up' I suppose.

The black seaman got touchy when he got up in a freezing train coach to complain about bitter cold in the winter unheated coach, then the white merchant seaman (also), lay down across the seat and the gun left in a brown paper bag on the seat.

A fight ensued, as the black man took offense and assaulted the unknowing white guy, both of them tough and burly.

I broke up the fight and considered it worth while, so I could return to sleep, but the black guy produced the hitherto unknown gun, and fired, hitting first the black guy and with the same bullet, me, also, penetrating my leg from the thigh to the knee.

I went to the hospital for two-three days where local Mafia offered to me to kill the black guy (I refused since he was going to prison anyway, as he was caught right away), -- especially since after leaving the scene, apparently cooling down, and having 'cooled down', came to me on the train platform (I was VERY scared since he had the gun still and concealed), and asked freezing me on the platform:  'the white guy, is he OK?' to which I replied enthusiastically 'Yeah, he'll be all right.'

Wrong answer!

The next words were a woman passengers' running off the train screaming 'He shot him again' and sure enough, the black man pistol whipped the black man down, then put the .38 police special in the white merchant seaman's mouth and pulled the trigger.

All she wrote?

Not quite.

The white guy instinctively jerked, and the bullet grazed hit cheek and scalp and took a piece out of his ear, causing the wound to bleed profusely and a woman yelled 'Mister, don't shot him again, he's dead' and the shooter didn't, saving the white seaman's life.

Sooner than I the white seaman was able to walk from the hospital, bandages over his through and through wound.

I ended up first in Trenton hospital, then witnessed riots as I gave a statement and a breakin by rioters of the police station where my guardian cop held these axe wielding rioters off with a double gauge with just him and another cop left in the whole police station, plus me.

No film for any of this or I'd have a Pulitzer for sure!

Or at least have had a chance.

I had an empty camera, learning a valuable lesson about carrying a camera (loaded) which I do to this day.

Onetime colleague, and Pulitzer great Eddie Adams was near the World Trade Center on 9-11, and always lamented that he was famous for the killing photo of the Viet Nam prisoner, and had a chance to make world famous photos, but NO FILM.

I have vowed never to be without medium.

I ended up in New York's St. Luke's hospital, not once but three times.

Within a week, I could walk a mile, but a doctor's ill-considered treatment (kind words actually) caused a small infection to spread nearly costing me my leg and the greater part of a month in a hospital just as the students were getting ready to take over Columbia (part of which I photographed, and sold to Time-Life, etc.)

(Later, Berkeley, S.F. State, and Viet Nam beginning that summer).

An event filled couple of years.

I was medically evacuated from Viet Nam with a gunshot wound, and again, no Pulitzer -- I hadn't been there long enough to have a chance.

Those damn bullets hurt.

(I think you may have heard/read this before, but it's new to many.)

john

John (Crosley)

No, not heard before.