© Jérôme Sessini
The Failure of Politics
An Orthodox priest raises a crucifix over a barricade of sandbags. Around his neck he wears a gas mask. Beside him, a young man in a balaclava holds an improvised metal shield. The sky is black with smoke.
This photograph was taken in 2014 in Kyiv, Instytutska Street, during the days of Euromaidan. But if you didn’t know that, you could look at it today and find nothing out of place. That was the first thing that struck me when I chose it for the exhibition: it hasn’t aged. Not because it is timeless in any romantic sense, but because what it describes has never ended.
The panel theme is “Making the ‘Enemy’”. The enemy in this photograph cannot be seen. There is no face on the other side. And yet the title holds, because the question the image poses is exactly this: who decided that these people were the enemy? An elderly priest. A young man in a winter jacket. Citizens on a barricade built from whatever they had found in the street.
When a state begins to wage war on its own citizens, it has already lost something irreparable. Not the battle. Something deeper. The legitimacy to decide who belongs and who does not, who deserves protection and who must instead be stopped. A priest forced to wear a gas mask to stand among his people is the definitive image of that failure. He is not blessing a war. He is witnessing the moment politics stopped working.
The Ukrainian people on that barricade, from the young men in balaclavas to the elderly priests, had decided they would not take a single step back. Whatever the cost. On Instytutska Street, in the weeks that followed, dozens of protesters would be killed by sniper fire.
Sessini photographed the threshold. The moment before. What came after, we all know.
VOICES – European Festival of Media Freedom & Journalism
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibé’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.