Death of a friend

"Camera?" I said, motioning to my bag and looking at Sasha with pleading eyes.

Sasha turned and translated my request to Brother Jaroslav, the 23-year old monk who was hosting us. After a brief exchange, Sasha turned to me and shook his head.

"He's almost dead, you know?"

I scuttled down the hall after Sasha and Jaroslav[Yaro-slav], as the smiling brother opened a door just 3 rooms down from where I had been sleeping. The silence of a universally recognized stench hit us as we entered the inner room. It was more than just urine or the familiar stink of sweat, this smell was unique to the dying.

Not once had Jaroslav's impervious smile left his face during our three days at Univ Monastery, not once had he frowned or winced with the frustration of our American ways or our terrible Ukrainian. But in that room, as the three of us stood around the bed of Ananina, we looked again into the eyes of this now dying monk and were speechless. Jaroslav's smile was gone.

I remember photographing this monk in September, shortly after I first arrived in Ukraine. During evening prayer, he had waddled into the sanctuary, oblivious to the chanting and the pairs of eyes following him, and sat next to the singers. I knew there weren't any photographs allowed in the sanctuary, but the intricate design of his robe and the black cusp of his hood captivated me. As he sat in a beam of sunlight, clothed in black and surrounded by the wail of Ukrainians worshipping, I saw him as a pillar, an aging foundation of something I was only beginning to understand.

I asked him after Vespers(evening prayer) if I could photograph him, and he agreed. After I snapped a few shots, he thanked me and then kissed my hand. If I had been in America, I would have awkwardly giggled. But I understood what he was communicating, something deeper than the clumsiness of language. Brett told me that in Ukraine, people only kiss the hands of a Bishop.

As Brett, Sasha, Jaroslav and myself stood with Ananina's caretakers last weekend, five months after I first visited Univ, we stared blankly into pale blue eyes that couldn't stare back. The cancer in his lung, they said, had left him so weak he was unable to stand or talk. He stared blankly at the ceiling. His chest rose and fell with short gasps from an open mouth, and it reminded me of the panting of the hamsters I had as a kid.

Jaroslav told me Ananina hadn't eaten anything all month, just water. We all bowed before we went out, and feeling out of place, I forced myself to touch his bed. I knew I couldn't offer him any comfort than what he already had, I knew he was tougher than me. I knew he had left the monastery in his 20s to fight in the war, and when there was no one left to fight, he married and had another life. When his wife died, he came back to the monastery and donated all of his possessions to the monks.

I knew I could offer him nothing as I touched his blanket, searching for his bony ankle in the sheets to show some shallow sense of compassion. I knew it didn't mean anything, and that's what disturbed me most of all. I knew I couldn't pay him the same respect and return the kiss.

Proof we(the world) don't know anything about Ukraine: the gas never went off and I'm still warm

"Do you know what my American friends asked me?" I said to the history students in 2nd period English. "They asked me if I still had heat, if we could cook or if anyone had gas."

"Really?" said Lubomyr.

"Yes," I said, "they think you are all freezing."

The class burst into laughter and giggles at the ridiculous notion. When I arrived in the United States for Christmas in late December, Russian gas giant GazProm shut the natural gas lines going through Ukraine to Europe. Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas, Ukraine fired back saying Russia was blackmailing the country in order to build a new pipeline around Ukraine. I began getting emails saying "are you going to have heat?"

Standing in front of my students last Thursday, I realized I had been thinking the same thing for a while and I felt embarrassed. The heat never went off. Ukraine, the largest country in Europe, also has the largest gas reserves. During the reign of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was the principal natural gas reserve holding for everything under the Iron Curtain. Those tanks didn't disappear when the wall fell, and Ukraine has made good use of them. 

According the Kyiv Post, Ukraine had enough gas reserves to supply the entire country for 9 months without relief. Businesses and some individuals did suffer from lack of gas, but as one editorialist in the Post pointed out, shutting off the gas was never a real threat against Ukraine. Kiev has enough gas already. 

So why did we(Americans, The West, the world) think Ukrainians were burning their furniture?

In a nutshell: we don't get our news from Ukraine, we get it from Russia.

Unbeknownst to me, and anyone who's never traveled to this part of the world, the west has adopted all sorts of fun Russified words and names for Soviet satellite countries like Ukraine, George, Bulgaria, etc. "Lviv," where I live, is the Ukrainian name. But type that into Orbitz.com or United Airlines' website and it will draw a blank. You have to type in "LVO" or "Lvov," the Russian name in order to book a flight here.

It's the same for news. According to one of my students who is studying Journalism at Ivan Franko University in Lviv, her college is conducting a study on the western media and where they get their sources. According to Ivan Franko, most western journalists know Russian journalists or Russian news, so they call them first. Most of the coverage in the U.S. of the gas crisis came from Moscow, not from Kiev. 

As many Ukrainians will tell you, and as the Kyiv Post likes to point out on a weekly basis, Russia and Ukraine have strained relations to say the least. A very smart editorial from that online publication noted how countries surrounding Russia pay staggered prices for natural gas, depending on how loyal they have been to the Kremlin. Belarus(or Bielo-Russia meaning "White Russia") pays the least, less than $200 US. Ukraine pays closer to $500 US for the same type and quantity of gas.

What I want for Christmas, and what the D3x means for travel photographers

I'm a traveling photojournalist who's always on the move, and shooting on the road isn't always easy. So when I saw that the release of the Nikon D3x, the next installment of the pro Nikon bodies, was leaked online, I jumped at the thought of trying to shoot with one of these on the road. Would I?

In a nutshell: probably not.

I currently carry a NIkon D300, a 17-35 mm lens, an 80-200 mm lens, a 50 mm(portraits), a flash, a light meter, a rain cover and the grip for the D300. In other words, any time you see me with my camera bag, I have about 30 pounds of photo equipment strapped to me. It's a pain. I am going to spring for a lightweight camera backpack soon, as the side pouch I currently use, while great for lightweight assignments and easy access, is going to give me major back pain in the future. I can't imagine trying to stuff a Nikon D3x in there with everything else and lugging it around.

I say this to illustrate a point about my style of travel and how I photograph: less is more. I need to be comfortable when I travel, and an extra 25-30 pounds doesn't help. Plus, one of the greatest pains of on-the-cheap travel photography is checking in your bag. If I go on a backpacking trip across Europe and don't bring my photo equipment, I can haul my bag right onto the plane and never check a bag, never pay a fee. But once I bring the camera, I have more weight, more liability, and I have to check something.

I'm a young photographer who shoots with a D300 and a D2x. I didn't bring the D2x to Ukraine this fall because of liability, and because it's just too damn big.

For those photographers reading this who know the specs of the D3x, you also know this is entirely impractical for anyone but serious landscape and portrait photographers who want to move into medium format.

For guys like me who need lightweight gear that can bang out images fast, this is mostly useless. Not to mention the $8000 price tag

Above: shots from election day a month ago, hard to believe it went so fast! Notice the menu items in the last shot.

Last view of Fall

Above, top to bottom:A woman walks in Strisky Park in the thick fog of early morning; the last seeds of a flowering plant wait to be blown away by the freezing winds of winter, near the outskirts of Strisky Park; A group of band players in their white uniforms walk through the Russian Cemetery on Lychakivska Street; and a woman calls her dog during a walk in the early fog in Strisky.
More to come with this series, fall is so beautiful here and it's over! No more, but oh well! I got some great pictures from my first and probably last fall in Lviv.

Portraits at the University, I'm going to be in a gallery!

Above, top to bottom: Bozena Hrycyna, an english teacher from Toronto, Canada, with her class at Khutorivka(Holy Spirit) Seminary in Lviv, Ukraine. Robert Marks, a Fullbright Professor from Dominican University in Michigan, poses for a portrait with Greek Catholic nuns at the seminary.

I like assignments. As a photographer, I can either shoot for myself(which often doesn't produce much money, at least not now) or shoot what someone else wants. The first is evermore gratifying, and the second is evermore lucrative, but rarely do they intersect.

I've been shooting for RISU, a university department that functions as a type of religious news service. But really, RISU does just about everything. I've been editing stories for them, designing a yearly brochure in InDesign that goes out to every donor by Christmas, and photographing on occasion.

I'm currently pursuing a story on mental health recovery in Ukraine that started with a wild car trip with a priest two months ago. I'm currently photographing for the Faith and Light program that runs several mental health workshops around the city. In a country where just a few years ago, the horrific collaboration of pimps and corrupt administrators allowed mental health patients to used as sex slaves for money, the university I work for is performing miracles. Someone actually cares what happens to these people and the quality of life they live.

In February, my work will hopefully be displayed in an art gallery in downtown Lviv as a part of the project. We shall see, but I don't have a specific date yet.

Why we don't vote for communists

Before this historic election in America(which I covered in Lviv, photos to come with slideshow), I was out wandering around, taking photos on a sunny afternoon like I always do. Sometimes I forget that I'm living in a post-soviet bloc country that has been devastated by communism. Then I look out my window at the identical, concrete, human-filing cabinet across the road and I realize "hey! There's no creative expression in a totalitarian society, in fact, there's no expression/dissent/freedom at all! Yippee!"

This is why we don't vote for communists. I'm not making a political comment on the American election, please don't misinterpret me. Instead, you should know that this week I have never been prouder to be an American than these past few days. Words cannot describe what I've seen here, how devastated this country is because of secular communism, and how cynical the people are about change, politics and any sort of freedom in their lives. 

As Brett picked up a book on the history of Lviv a student had gifted me, he flipped open to the page from 1992, shortly after the Iron Curtain fell and Ukraine won its independence.

"Hey, look at this," he said. "This is the first store opened in Lviv in 1992."

Let me say that again. The first store was opened in 1992. Before this time, there was nothing to buy. Nothing. You waited in line everyday to collect one loaf of bread, one piece of meat and one piece of cheese to feed your entire family. That was it. People went nuts here when the hot dog vendor was introduced. The first signs of capitalism were people sitting on the sidewalk with an umbrella, a few thermos' full of lemonade and coffee, and some cheap hot dogs served on a slice of bread. It was like Beanie Babies and Tickle-Me Elmo walked into a preschool and handed out Skittles. People went nuts, they had never experienced free enterprise before.

A colleague described how his father was a miner, a well-paid position in the Soviet Union. he made a very good wage, but realized that there was nothing he could use the money for, nothing at all. There was nothing to buy, there were no stores for groceries, clothes, electronics, etc. Everyone had the same thing, everything was provided by the government. He put all his money in Soviet banks, and when the Union dissolved, so did his bank account and he lost everything.

It shows in the city. Looking at the pictures above, you can see a few examples of the dilapidated structures of the city. Lviv is the most western city in Ukraine, in fact many Ukrainians tour here because they literally think it is Europe. Yet, the sidewalks are falling apart, completely broken with bits of concrete strewn about. Everyday, the little old ladies have to navigate stairs like the ones above, stairs that haven't been repaired in 50 years and are practically wheelchair ramps now because they've disintegrated. There are abandoned buildings, like the one above, that were built by the soviets, never developed, and left to become ghosts of a failed regime lurking in the past.

The infrastructure is nonexistent here, evidenced by the lack of proper roads, transportation, healthcare, fire and police safety and numerous other deficiencies. Yet, Ukraine has been free for 16 years. But it will live with the scars of communism for lifetimes to come.