International photo salon under Kyiv bridge

The Fourth International Photo Salon “Panorama of My Land 2013” opened at Kyiv art gallery “ArtPrychal” located between the pillars of the newly-built Havana Bridge.

According to the organizers’ conception, the works submitted for the competition should reflect the specifics of a certain country – its national character, traditions, ethnic characteristics, history, landscapes, and more. The project initiated by the National Union of Photographers of Ukraine is held as a part of Eastern Partnership program and under the auspices of the International Photo Movement “Images Without Borders.” Besides, the Embassy of Finland in Ukraine also provided its assistance. A special meeting of the international jury was held to determine the winners of the competition. The jury consisted of a Ukrainian expert and also representatives of Georgia and Finland.

“When we just started our photo salon in 2010, there was a wave of interest in panoramic images in Ukraine,” Rostyslav KONDRAT, Secretary of the Board for Organization Issues of the National Union of Photographers of Ukraine, told The Day. “Then it was something new and many people in Ukraine made their first attempts in this genre. Today it is much more common. In order not to put any limitations on photographers in choice of the means for solving their creative tasks, we have established a separate nomination for photographs in the traditional format. The term ‘panorama’ in the name of the Photo Salon indicates not only the technical features of the photos, but also a special ‘panoramic’ vision of a country by a certain photographer. However, of course, this particular format remains a priority for us. The thing is that the human eye has sight angle of 45-50 degrees while a panoramic image gives 120 or more degrees. Such images are perceived very differently – panoramic photos often change the location depicted on them beyond recognition.”

The winner in the nomination “Panorama” became the photographer from Hong Kong Norman Lau. Ukrainian photo artist Kostiantyn Bobryshchev from Kobeliaky won the golden medal in the nomination “Traditional Format.” Special prize from The Day newspaper was awarded to the photographs The Road Home by Norman Lau and Misty Morning by Matti Niemi (Finland). The photographers received honorary diplomas, photo albums Living History and one-year subscription to the electronic version of the English digest of The Day.

“It is only possible to adequately reflect our homeland in a photo by means of a panoramic image,” believes the winner of bronze medal of the Photo Salon Vasyl Helevachuk from Kryvy Rih. “Ukraine needs an appropriate scale. It was best described by Taras Shevchenko in his ‘Testament.’ I realized this when I started to work on my project ‘Panoramic Ukraine,’ in which I managed to collect photos from all oblasts of Ukraine and the Crimea. All the photos were taken by the same camera and the same lens, which made it possible to put in line and compare the most beautiful places of Ukraine. At the time when photos were taken on film, one would need a special camera to make a panoramic image, but today they are cropped from the traditional format or are often ‘stitched together’ from a few separate images.”

“With the wide spread of digital photography, more and more people became interested in making panoramic images,” said Volodymyr Falin, photographer of “Ukrinform,” who came to the exhibition to see the works of his colleagues. “Before, many people refused the idea of making such photos not so much because of the need to buy a special camera, but more so because of the problems that occurred during printing such images – a special photo magnified was need to do this. However, today many of the Ukrainian photographers are lazy to make panoramas because they would need to master new computer software for that. But, in fact, in order to learn how to use it, you only need to try it a few times. You also need to have a special vision – I personally have repeatedly realized that it would be great to make a panorama after looking through the footage.”

The organizers informed that the exhibition will be open until October 12 and after it is completed the competition entries will be exhibited in many Ukrainian cities.