'The Refugees: Family Ties'

As fighting in Eastern Ukraine initially sputtered then rages as now,

displacing an estimated quarter million or more people, for some

family ties remain strong, as shown here at Kyiv's Central Train

Station, a refuge for many newly arrived. 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. Thanks! Enjoy! john

I like the pensive looks of the mother, father and child that the father is holding.  A lot of message there.  I do wonder if you had shot a bit to the right and brought the couple closer together in the frame if this would have been an improvement?  Don't know.  Thank you for sharing with PN.

An impressive document of the times. Karl

Good idea about getting the couple 'closer together', but several issues.

1)  The photo is partly predicated on the separation between mother and the small boy and the 'tension' between boy (held by poppa) and his attempt to lean toward momma, while his younger brother, not being held by poppa, gets the succor of momma by leaning directly on mom, and baby actually gets held by mom.  In a sense, this is as much a photo about closeness, succor and tension as one grows older and has to be held and given care by poppa as anything else.

2)  I was about 228 or 248 mm (DX frame) meaning (FX distance) well over 200 and maybe over 300 mm away from this group across a very crowded plaza, shooting in between the pedestrians going left and right, and sneaking my frames in between.  My lens was a long normal to long zoom extended rather far (I didn't just look up the extension, but it was pretty long; I shoot that same scene distance rather regularly how but this was the first time).  So, changing my ANGLE to these people to get momma and her two brood close to poppa and his lone boychik closer together as you suggested on my part would have required some substantial travel for me.  As I recall there may even have been a kiosk that prevented a shot from that angle, but I can't be sure; but there was a likelihood the scene would go away, the people would move, (as they did quickly, since everything was 'plastic' as Cartier-Bresson' would have said, and then it just devolved into nothing as they went away, after the crowd obscured my view mostly.

I hope this is a good enough explanation.

Your suggestion was helpful.  Thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

I got in on the Martin Luther King assassination aftermath (the day after) then went to Washington D.C. when it was shut down for the riots, and got shot on the way in a racial incident (I was a 'hero' and a bystander).  I got driven from the hospital to the police station through a 'race riot' (Trenton's first).  Rioters eventually broke into the cop shop with me and two cops, one holding off the rioters at the bottom floor with a shotgun (protecting me, leaning on a cane from my gunshot wound crippled leg).  The rioters had axe handles, clubs and other weapons and would have killed me and the cop if they got to me.

Then I went to Viet Nam with a camera after healing.  I was medivacced to the US.

I also went to various campus riots -- soon after, the Columbia Univ. (where I went to school) riots (the first campus riots), even before I healed, then San Francisco State, after return from Viet Nam, then Berkeley/People's Park (riots), before and after I joined Associated Press.

I was in Maidan (Independence Square, Kyiv, Ukraine) as protesters struggled with Ukraine's president, taking photos, eventually causing him to flee triggering the present war as Putting took exception.

This photo is not the Ukraine East, but Kyiv's Central Train station, yet I still have a knack for getting into things 'newsworthy' and topical. 

Even during the moon shots, I wrote AP stories, even though I was nowhere near Houston, Florida or anywhere that related to rockets, and instead wrote about things such as bouncing a laser off the moon; a movie proving lighting struck a moon rocket taken by a university professor I interviewed and viewed in Nevada after a moon shot -- get the point?

I just couldn't get away from the news -- it was like it was sucked toward me.

I guess it's still so.

This may be proof.

You may be a magnet for news or something else too, but you just have to recognize the signs and have camera ready.

Best to you Karl (sorry for the long reply.)

john

John (Crosley)

Very powerful documentary photograph.  It is perfectly taken and it's all there for the viewers to study. Although the man holding his face with anguish (slightly reminding me of ( D. Lange's Migrant Mother ) there is a lot to take and appreciate in details and emotions. What a master piece!  Regards,

I accept your compliments.

I note, however that Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' stands alone as a photographic icon, and nothing I ever have done, here, in the past or probably in the future, will ever be able to hold a candle to that photo.

Thank you so very much; your words are very much appreciated.

Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

An excellent capture with your signature, John. You caught a scene that speaks through the expressions on their faces... a raw document of a distressing situation. 

Thank you so much.

I am humbled.

I work hard, and occasionally I am rewarded.

Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

A very moving image. While you place it in Kiev, it brings to mind as well other places where we hear of displaced people. For some reason my eye keeps going to the boy with his head on mother's shoulder. And thanks for sharing the circumstances in which you took the picture. Ed

You make a very good point -- maybe points.

In a sense this photo was NOT taken to illustrate the plight of refugees, as it was not then known immediate;y that these people were refugees.

Soon later was it realized that the Kyiv Central Train Station was a displaced person/family center.  

Put that together with the fact that this entire family, obviously traveling or just arrived has NO luggage, seems to have only the clothes on their back, is well nourished (and thus not vagabonds) but poor (and many of the people from  Eastern Ukraine are quite poor and considered by their Russian leaders 'bumpkins' according to Russian/mercenary leaders who have been interviewed, sad to say), plus the fact that 1/4 to 1/2 million people have been displaced - at least half to Ukraine's other parts -- others to Russia), and this photo literally shouts 'REFUGEES'

But this photo stands for 'family values', for obvious and evident reasons -- as you have pointed out.

And, as you also have pointed out, in that instance, this photo is more universal than just a Ukrainian 'war' displaced persons photo, and instead becomes a photo representing ALL displaced persons (at least of their socio-economic class -- Europeans at least, and excluding, say, black Africans severely starved, as they are adequately nourished and hydrated).

Congratulations for such a well-thought-out and economically stated critique.  Such critiques are most helpful for me as photographer in analysis and photographing 'next time' as well as for other viewers in their analysis and enjoyment.

Thank you very much for adding much to this colloquy.

john

John (Crosley)

Powerful! Speaks loudly to me. WOW, the more I look the more I wonder. Amazing image indeed.

Looks more like a dysfunctional "Family Quarrel".

Look again.

mommy: "I told you we missed the bus".

daddy: "F you".

And the kids: "are we there yet?"

Good family documentary.

Thank you for such a high compliment.

I would naturally take almost only such images if I only could see and/or recognize them as I wandered about.

This is a multi-subject, one or multi-theme (family/refugee) photo.

Notice it's mostly on one plane.

The real genius would be to take such a photo or to regularly take such photos on multiple planes, and to do so with ease and without noticeable effort, each conveying such messages.

I do such, but with great lapses between photos. (See my photo, if you can find it in both color and black and white in their respective folders 'Leaving Las Vegas (through the eyes of John Crosley') if you can find it, and you'll get the point about the multi-planar, multi-subject photo as opposed to the uni-planar photo here.  

Any serious photo with so many actors, however, each conveying a strong message and with serious interaction that conveys a single or multiple messages is a 'contenduh' (to borrow a phrase from 'On the Waterfront' and Marlon Brando).

Now all I need is Karl Malden to listen to my meanderings (he played the priest in that wonderful movie about 'missed chances')  I hope this time I didn't miss my chance -- I missed (I think) a Pulitzer almost at the start of my shooting through one act of carelessness, and worse, I can never prove or illustrate the point without making a movie of my experience.

You compliment is very much appreciated by this sweaty, sore, achy, very poor, and very devoted photographer who risks even life and limb sometimes (and even a through drenching from time to time) plus unhappy encounters with 'separatists' to bring my audience good photos from time to time.

;~))

John 

John (Crosley)

One of the wonderful things about joining and staying here at Photo.net is that time and again, I have learned that aside from viewing the truly AWFUL photo that commands attention because of its awfulness, the photo that through one quality or another causes viewers to 'stay their gaze' has the beginnings of a successful photo.

In your case, you have emphasized just one part of this photo -- the family dysfunction part of the photo which you read into it, though it represents the situation of just a fraction of a second, which (I saw it) changed within seconds.

But for the second, that is a true story, and your story is a true story.  (It's a train, not a bus, but never mind, that is not a worthwhile point to dwell on).  And they are 'there' already, but you know traveling kids well  . . . the mantra at least from America kids (Israeli too?) is 'Are we there yet?) as kids are truly 'tabula rasa' and haven't got an idea of what 'there is' (apologies to Gertrude Stein).  For children sometimes there is 'no there there' just like Stein's Oakland, though that is changing with Oakland's new gentrification as Google overhauls San Francisco and prices the natives out of San Francisco and drives the population into Oakland.

Your little story, for me, Meir, is a fine compliment, for it tells me that this photo captured your imagination long enough and well enough or you to think about it, and to even seize its dramatic moment and play with it - and seize on its comedic potential, which you did well.  

Thanks for that.

So, when you praise the photo, it's redundant, but please don't think of taking it back; I treasure when you do so.

john

John (Crosley)