In on a regular basis life, these individuals may seem regular: they don’t have any bodily wounds, their family members and youngsters are alive by their facet.
However Ukrainian photographer Sergey Melnitchenko’s black-and-white portraits reveal the chilling depths that stand between his topics and normalcy. They gaze outward with calm, matter-of-fact expressions, whereas the large superimposed projection of their most haunting battle reminiscences distorts their options.
The themes select the images themselves, stated Melnitchenko, who options his mates, fiancée, and son in a conceptual images undertaking, "Tattoos of battle."
The photograph — both taken by the topics or sourced on information web sites — represents essentially the most painful reminiscence they affiliate with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that started in February 2022. After greater than three years of relentless Russian assaults on the nation which have killed tens of hundreds of individuals, Ukrainians face no scarcity of such reminiscences.
"It’s an not possible process, in truth," Melnitchenko informed the Kyiv Impartial. "As a result of everybody has lots of of those reminiscences. It’s a must to select one, as if to persuade your self that this occasion was essentially the most tough, essentially the most tragic. Though each occasion that considerations our nation throughout the battle is the worst."
For Melnitchenko, every photograph from the undertaking carries the load of occasions that he and his topics can nonetheless hardly comprehend.
Probably the most difficult portraits for him was a photograph of his mates Maryna and Serhii in opposition to the backdrop of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration of their native metropolis, destroyed by a Russian missile on March 29, 2022.
Because of the assault, the central part of the constructing collapsed from the ninth to the primary ground, killing 37 individuals. Maryna and Serhii fled town a yr in the past, however the reminiscence — a “tattoo” — will stick with them perpetually, Melnitchenko says in his photograph e-book in regards to the undertaking.
However over the last shoot from the collection on the finish of 2024 with the household of Andrii, Viktoria, and their daughter Kira, Melnitchenko witnessed for the primary time how one may remodel their tragic reminiscences right into a supply of energy.
The household selected a photograph of a seaside with pine timber on a riverbank of the Dnipro River, the place they liked spending time earlier than the full-scale invasion started.
Russia at the moment occupies this seaside in Kakhovka, Kherson area. However even underneath occupation, the imaginative and prescient from the {photograph} might be lengthy gone, as Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric energy plant’s dam reshaped the water terrain within the oblast.
In accordance with the photographer, the household discovered it therapeutic to course of the lack of their favourite place by visually exposing its affect.
"When Russians destroy our favourite locations, or locations of our reminiscences, they’re attempting to remove not solely this place bodily, but in addition our good reminiscences of them," Melnitchenko stated.
"This household was the to begin with the heroes to decide on not a photograph of devastation as a background, however a photograph with a spot of their energy and nice reminiscences," he added.
"My son’s ‘battle tattoo’ will stay anyway, as a result of he’s a baby of battle, he is aware of what is occurring now and (will) understand all of it as an grownup," Sergey stated.
"We appear to decide on for ourselves the image and the reminiscence that damage us essentially the most … However, in truth, we’ve got had hundreds of such moments within the final yr alone."
The Kyiv IndependentElena Kalinichenko
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