Life goes on in spite of everything

Mykola Zatovkaniuk from Lutsk told us about his experience of participating in Den’s Photo Competition. He received a prize from UNDP in Ukraine, the general partner of the project, in 2013 for his work Am I to Suffer it for 12 Years?

Last year was not the first to see you participating in Den’s Photo Competition...

“Yes, I won awards at this event twice, in 2010 and 2013. Interestingly, my winning photos depicted children both times. My 2010 work subsequently won an award at a competition in Spain. I decided to keep true to the tradition this time as well, so I went to school on September 1 and photographed an interesting boy again. He was deep in thought, leaning over his foreign language and history textbooks. My second photo, which I also sent to Den, was taken in the same class. It shows a very sleepy pupil. He is yawning, but at the same time is trying hard to overcome himself and do not miss anything of what is happening around. I hope that if these photos are selected for the exhibition, they will make smile everyone who sees them, and warm that person’s soul. Life goes on in spite of everything, including in our schools. It is very important for our country.”

May it be said that photographing children is a major theme of your work?

“Yes, it really is. In particular, thanks to Den, I have realized that I like to take pictures of children, especially when they engage in sports. For some reason, photographers usually bypass this theme. When I worked for a sports newspaper, I did not miss an event. Children’s competitions, for example, in soccer, make for a unique phenomenon. I have a lot of photos on the subject, and plan to send most interesting of them to participate in Den’s Photo Competition. Generally, I have been professional sports photographer for 12 years. I have to travel a lot, as I had gone to international competitions with Metalist, Shakhtar, and Chornomorets soccer teams.”

Is there demand for sports photos at international photo competitions?

“When such masters as Mykola Bochok, Oleksandr Zadyraka, and Mykhailo Chernychkin were starting working, the sports photography was very popular. Now, unfortunately, our profession’s value has fallen slightly. Once we got digital recording technology, very young boys and girls began to enter the profession. They use very expensive cameras, which we could only dream of once, but they actually still have few skills. They try to shoot sports, but one must first understand and feel them! You need to know the specifics of each sport, its dynamics, psychology. To achieve something in sports photography, you need to work for decades. Today, unfortunately, the overall level has significantly decreased. It seems like variety is great, even excessive, but one easily gets lost in this variety, except for the experts who already have a name in the art. A true artist always has their own manner, making it very easy to distinguish their work among many others.

“I think that events like Den’s Photo Competition are what we really need today. It actually reflects the life of the country, everything that happened to it during the year. This is a very important mission. I wish your newspaper’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna to continue to successfully implement the project. Keeping up the good work in spite of the situation in the country and all the difficulties is a very right and important move.”