We continue with a series of interviews with professional Ukrainian documentarians.
We talked about the experience of filming the war, empathy in work and the hometown of Kharkiv with Georgy Ivanchenko, Yakov Lyashenko and Oleksandr Magula.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
With photography, I began to work with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. I deal with documentary, journalism, but for a long time I could not decide whether I was a documentary photographer or a photojournalist. First of all, I am a non-profit photographer. I am very close to the thesis of Max Dondyuk, who wrote: “Photographer in the field of journalism and documentary.”
Alexander Magula:
I never thought of myself as a documentary filmmaker. First of all, I associate myself with a journalist, because I am a journalist by education, and in my work I use primarily techniques from journalism, not from documentary. And I think that most of the photos I take are still more related to journalism. Documentary photography for me is more artistic, more thoughtful. Instead, I am more guided by journalistic techniques. But, even working in a journalistic format, I take a lot of photos, and maybe out of a hundred news photos, one becomes an important document.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I also feel more attached to photojournalism because my work is not always documentary. There are many events happening in Kharkiv region, in Ukraine, which we document, but more as photojournalists.
Alexander Magula:
The main technique of photojournalism is efficiency. Everything happens very quickly in news photos. Such a photo lives in the information stream, no matter how sad it may be, for two or three days, if the event is such that it goes beyond, then maybe a week. Therefore, yes, the main technique is to react quickly, quickly appear on the scene, and quickly return the frames to the editorial office.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I came from commercial photography. I did a lot of reportage photography, and I always liked it. In fact, what I do now has the same goal — documenting, photographing what is happening around you. I fundamentally never influence the frame, I do not tell anyone how or where to stand, where to look. This is exactly a photograph of what is really happening.
Alexander Magula:
I have been shooting since I was a child, since childhood, from the age of 12. I drew graffiti with my friends and I wanted my drawings to look good in the photo. I was not satisfied with the photos on the phone, and I began to shoot. First on the film, because that was the fashion. Gradually, it was the pictures of the drawings that ceased to interest me. I began to be interested in the creation process itself: how my friends draw, how they go to draw, how they return. And in fact, it was also a kind of reporter shooting, just from inside the process. Gradually, I came to the conclusion that graffiti is such a peculiar genre of art, where some plots are constantly repeated. My personal story is also intertwined with the journey into journalism. My family is from Donbas. When the war began in 2014, I saw that no one, for example, among my classmates, knew what was happening in the same Debaltseve. It surprised me a lot. I have this inner urge to communicate to people, to their information bubble, that something bad is going on. So I decided that I like to photograph, I decided to enter journalism and came to the conclusion that I was attracted to photojournalism. Thus, from the first year of university, I began to shoot already in this genre.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
If it is very simple, then as a child, at the age of 10, I was lured by the viewfinder of my mother's camera. She showed me sometimes, I watched. And everything somehow looked so very different than in reality, although it was broadcasting ordinary reality. That's where it all started. These are the first, perhaps, the basics, steps to acquaintance with photography. However, I started keeping my camera on my own at the age of 17. I walked, filmed something on the street, somehow understood slowly, learned that there are different ways, different animals, how and what can be shown. However, perhaps, such a moment of quintessence was the admission to Lviv Polytechnic at the Faculty of Journalism. I had high expectations that I would have mentors who could lead me into this world. Why did I like this social photo at all? This is documentary, journalism. I realized that you can not just shoot a street, where you need to catch shadows or something unusual and beautiful, but you can do something similar, but in those moments when it is a socially significant thing in the history of a family, people, city, country, world.
I was influenced by the story of journalist Gareth Jones. But I have not seen his pictures. I read the book, heard the story, saw the movie, but I didn't see the pictures. The joke is that he is the first Welshman who came and showed the whole world that there is a Holodomor in Ukraine. And it struck me that a person with a camera, with a text, could tell something from another part of the world, something socially important that no one dared to talk about. It is no longer even about photography and not about text, but about curiosity and investigation, about the direction of movement in journalism.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
When I studied for half a year at the university, a full-scale invasion began and I left Lviv to shoot. I knew I needed to take pictures. He filmed volunteers at the station for a week and then left. I looked at a lot of pictures by photographers from the Magnum agency, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eliot Hervit, Robert Capa and others. Their photos led me to the decision that we had to go and shoot.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I have a slightly different story as I got into documentary photography. At the beginning of a full-scale war, he worked as a fixer. A friend suggested I try it. At that point, I didn't even know what fixation was. My first photographers that I helped were precisely documentarians, with work experience, and they inspired me. For example, James Nachtway. However, I realized that they come, shoot and move on. However, the war does not end, and you need to do it every day. At that point, I was just starting out and did not yet know how to work in the war. However, I gained a lot of experience with photographers.
I started working in Kharkov, because then it was one of the epicenters of events. Of course, there was a war in the Donbas and in Kherson, but I was in Kharkov, I knew the city, I knew everything that was needed to work here.
Yakov Lyashenko:
At the time of the beginning of a full-scale war, I had a creative crisis. At that time, I rarely took pictures, even took a camera in my hands. I worked a lot before that, maybe a little burned out, and the format in which I worked did not suit me anymore. I wanted to take a break. However, at the beginning of the war I started working with prominent photographers, especially such as Nachtway, and that inspired me super. I saw how it works and how it communicates with people.
I watched photographers from morning to evening, analyzed how they work, what methods they use. I'm not talking about setting up the camera, I'm talking about finding the moment, choosing a frame. I was fascinated by it and I knew I wanted to shoot. I then shot a little on the film and on the figure. Later I realized that I no longer wanted to be a fixer, but wanted to photograph and document myself.
Alexander Magula:
My family is from Debaltseve, so I have my motivation to take pictures. I decided in the first year that I wanted to shoot. Now it's even a little embarrassing to say that I dreamed of becoming a military photographer. I always thought I would go somewhere in the Donbas. When the war came to Kharkiv itself, I realized that we must be more careful with my desires, because they can become a reality.
In 2019 or 2020, I met German journalists in Berlin by chance. They told me about their experience in Syria, in Afghanistan. We have established a good contact. When the full-scale invasion began, I also had a creative crisis in photography. At that point, I barely touched the camera. Before full-scale, I worked for a year at the university as a journalist, videographer, it was a superlocal publication. I burned out, thoughts began to occur to me that I did not want to do this. A month after February 24, I received a message from a friend from Germany: “I remember our conversation and that you told me that you wanted to shoot. I'm going to Ukraine, the time has come — let's try it.” That's how we united with him. For the first six months, maybe eight months, we worked together as freelancers. Sometimes I helped him, worked with him as a photojournalist, and several times I worked for him as a fixer. I met a French photographer, with whom we are now friends.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
In fact, we did not see war until February 24. And our foreign colleagues, photographers, have such experience. They saw a lot of different surreal pictures that we see now. And so they already have a perception of war, and they apply their experience to Ukrainian realities. It works. Of course, our war is different, but wars are still similar. Our war is completely exclusive in the technologies used, unique in the number of weapons and shells.
Alexander Magula:
My first post was after two months of war. The photos were bought by the German magazine “Focus”. It was a report about Kharkov. He took a series of photographs together with a foreign journalist. This was my first publication in print, my first money earned precisely for photojournalism.
It was a portrait of the commander of “Kraken” Konstantin Nemichev, and these were the infantry positions in Cherkasy Lozova, where then there was conditionally “zero”, the front line Kharkov, North Saltovka. I had an existential crisis at the time, because these are the first days when I really saw houses burning down where I was walking, where my friends lived. When I was sent a PDF of the magazine, I looked at this: “Wow, it turned out!”. However, during the filming everything was like in a fog.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
The first material from a full-scale war that the media bought from me was from the filming of Borodianka after the occupation, where I was born. Then for the first time I worked with a journalist who needed a photographer. Journalist from Belarus, we became very friends with him, went to shoot the liberated Chernihiv region. It was important for me to share what I saw, to publish my work.
I did not think about money, but at some point one of the journalist's friends saw my photo with him somewhere on Facebook. I was given a contact by the EPA and then for the first time my photo went to the media. It was the village of Senkivka, a very authentic beautiful wooden house located 600 meters from the Russian border and the monument to the three sisters. From there, the Russians poured cassettes, and “Hurricanes”, and everything that they could. Fields in the village are sown with “cassettes”. We wanted to talk to the locals, we were looking for people in this village, and there were very few of them. We knocked on the house and no one opened it. I stood on a bench and looked at what was in the yard, and there was a big “Hurricane” just in the center.
Yakov Lyashenko:
In the beginning, when I worked as a fixer, I photographed for myself, trained, studied, watched more experienced photographers take pictures. My friend Katya arranged an exhibition for me, thank her for this. These were probably my first sold photos. These were not even publications in the media, but it was part of an exhibition in France, for which I was paid the first money. And that was interesting. I posted photos on instagram and the first publication was when Zelensky's official account posted my photos. It was nice.
The picture was from the de-occupation of Kharkiv region. It was the military who were riding on the BMP in Izyum — they smiled, rejoiced and waved at us. I made this frame and it was published. Before that, I just posted photos on social networks and said that you can take my photos, use them. It was important to me that someone saw these photos so that they were not lying on the table. After a year and a half of work as a fixer, he spent the money earned on updating photographic equipment. He also met people from the EPA and since then there have been publications in the media, in the world media.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
If the photos are from the event, they should not lie. However, I think that everyone has something “lying around”. The desire to tell about the events brings us to Kharkov. Obviously, this is the first major city on which there was such a massive blow, on which Russian troops are moving so actively. We know that Kharkov can be lost even before the start of a full-scale invasion. The attack on Kiev was a surprise for us, the attack on Kharkov was not a surprise for anyone. However, there are many internal, invisible events taking place there. I will tell you about the memories of one of those who led the defense of Saltovka. He counted 15 minutes for the first three days, that is, lived 15 minutes, lasted 15 minutes - that's cool. And it's a completely different sense of time that I don't know anything about. Nothing like that happened in my life, not even during the Russian-Ukrainian war, when my time would be reduced to 15 minutes, so that it would be an achievement, a super gift to survive 15 minutes. And photography is a visual thing that interacts primarily with time, it stops and captures it.
What was the feeling of the first months of the war in Kharkov, what was then wanted from my own photo? How was this all fixed? There are a lot of ways to tell. In the end, what makes a photo a photograph is the meaning you bring there. Then choose a composition and form in order to fix the meaning that you want to convey. The meaning of life in a city under siege, in a city on which the enemy is attacking, in which time is so concentrated, in which everything changes so much. People left, the light disappeared, people began to live in the subway. Everything was changing. And what then was desired at the level of meaning from his photograph, and how did this desired level of meaning provoke form?
Yakov Lyashenko:
All the time at the beginning of the full-scale war I was in Kharkov. Honestly, the first time was super scary. Lack of experience played a big minus. Why did fixation help this? I gained that important experience to be able to concentrate and take pictures in conditions of high stress. I remember my first trip to Saltivka with a French photographer. We just arrived after the “Grad” package was there, literally seven minutes later. I remember taking a picture of one grandmother who came out of her house engulfed in fire. Two other houses nearby also burned. She came out in a robe, in slippers, and it was, if I'm not mistaken, March. She went out, walked around the house, looked at this house. If I had experience working during the war, I could have taken a lot more pictures and better. However, now, if I look back, I understand that I did not fully realize the moment because of fears, ignorance. It was a new experience because I have never worked in places where there is constant shelling, where you can die at any moment. I didn't have the right clothes and equipment that could save lives, I didn't even have a first aid kit. My first first aid kit probably appeared closer to May.
Alexander Magula:
I have a similar story. I came to Saltivka with journalist Philip from Germany. I wanted to continue shooting, just even for myself. We went out to North Saltivka, and also filmed these poor people walking on the wreckage. I agree, if I had the experience, I could have made better shots. However, it was scary and there was no first aid kit. I only had a bulletproof vest and that's it.
We walked, filmed, filmed, met the soldiers. The soldiers began to check on us: “What are you doing here? Do you have a camera, are you a gunner or what are you shooting?” We explained that journalists work here. The soldiers told us, “Get out of here, because now there will be shelling.” Even before the full-scale war, in 2020, I went to “Desna”, received accreditation to the ATO zone. I never had to go there. Then we were told that in a combat zone, always listen to the military. If they say run away, then you have to run away. And that was just such a case. We began with such a slow step to move from an equipped position. The military began to shout at us: “We said run away, do not go, but run!” We ran a hundred meters, crossed the “Rodnik”...
The photos were published on the website of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. It's good that they went somewhere. Because at that moment I was shooting it just for myself. And I also had the feeling that due to lack of experience, I did not do enough. First of all, I didn't make any very, very touching shots. I almost died, but it was an experience when you understand that everything is very serious and basic safety rules should not be neglected.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
My story is also about Rodnik. We passed through this place and I stopped to remove the broken house. For the first time I came under such shelling when the square of your stay covers the “Grad”. If we talk about time, then it really slows down at this point. It was very scary. After that, I realized that the military says to go for a reason.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
The first shelling he came under was in Tsvirkuny in Kharkiv region in May. Then we were winged with “lighters” or phosphorus, it is not clear exactly. There was such a whistle, such a sound, as if the blades of a helicopter were spinning. It crumbles and slowly falls, you know, like such a fireworks salute. We did not understand what was happening and quickly ran to a random grandmother in the basement. There they waited. There were six of us humans, a small basement, but then I realized something else, a little more interesting. Those people were already used to all these things, and this woman says: “Oh, now I'll put the seagulls in the house, I'll bring the seagulls.” We are like, “What?”. As a result, we stayed there for a short time, maybe up to an hour. I saw that grandmother for the first time in my life, and that grandfather. However, war and all the terrible events that happen to you catalyze, I think, absolutely all processes — both growing up and relationships between people. During the hour I spent with my grandmother, I thought that she was closer to me than some distant relative. That is, these relationships, they have contracted over time.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I caught the concentrated time with Nachtway on Saltovka. It was relatively far from North Saltovka, we were in the car with him. A hundred meters from us was a package of “Grad”. The moment you sit in the car and pour a package of “Grad”, you do not realize that it is a hundred meters. It trickles like in chess, and you do not understand whether you are in the epicenter, whether you are on the side, or if it is somewhere far from you at all. By the feeling that you are right in the epicenter. I do not wish this to anyone. I didn't think about the photos at all at that moment.
I have one photograph, taken on film, of the aftermath of the arrival of that Grad package. There were injured people, burned apartments, a destroyed house. It seems to me that I did not capture that condensed time the way I would have liked. I believe that due to lack of work experience precisely in the conditions of war, I was not able to fully recover those first few months before the de-occupation of Cirkuni and the following villages, when shelling of Kharkov decreased greatly.
Alexander Magula:
I think the first photos just have some personal value for everyone. For example, George and I looked at pictures of each other about the beginning of a full-scale invasion. At a distance you see progress in technique, composition and how you gain experience. The first photos were taken intuitively, to the touch, when you just shoot what you see. The first pictures may not be very successful, but personally for you they are valuable. For example, you will open this photo and for the viewer it will be out of context. It can be just some smoke, collapsed buildings. Photography is not something you can be proud of, but there is a story behind it.
I am reminded of two pictures. The moment I photographed the collapsed entrance. There is nothing super special about this photo. However, I know that two minutes after the picture, the package of “Grad” arrived and I was very creepy there. The second photo, which I can call more successful, is a portrait of the commander of “Kraken” in the destroyed Regional State Administration. Then a rocket flew there. The attitude towards the military was, as I felt at the time, as if towards the gods. These are the people who can protect us, on whom all hope. The portrait of this commander is my personal embodiment of the attitude towards one of those men who defend Kharkiv, on whom the responsibility lies. All people are waiting for some kind of post from him, operational information that “Kraken” liberated new villages. I remember these first de-occupied villages, which Kraken liberated with other units. People had a very reverent attitude towards the military.
Yakov Lyashenko:
As for me, Kharkiv has changed a lot. When the artillery could no longer fire on Kharkov because of the long distance, people began to return en masse to the city. Before that, Kharkiv was empty. When the Circuses were liberated, when they liberated Vilkhivka, when they liberated Ruska Lozova, then people began to return little by little. This also affected the shooting, there were much fewer topics for filming. It's true. When artillery was shelling the city every day, the districts of Saltovka, Pyatikhatka were in turmoil, people lived in the metro, someone had no water, no light, nothing; he was shooting constantly. However, Kharkiv is a big city and not everything looks like Northern Saltovka. I came home from filming, I had internet, heating and even hot water. At home it was like another world. I think it was worth fixing the “two Kharkov”. I am glad that there are areas in Kharkov that are not destroyed, which were not fired at by artillery.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
At the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, KABs arrived in Nikolaev every day. As an alarm clock — from five to nine in the morning, from five to ten CABs flew. Five-story buildings were torn down, people died. I photographed everything I saw, shot the news. We heard that something flew - we left.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
Topic selection is based on experience. You first start working with events, with socially important materials. Then you understand that something is missing, that you need to change approaches to work. I stopped being interested in purely informational photography, because these topics can be shown a little differently. And what impact does that have now? Aren't the same arrival cards enough now? And do I need them now, because there are people who do it, and it's good that they do it. You ask yourself questions, you try to change technical, visual, conceptual solutions, you think how to show the theme of war, invasion, to make it interesting. When you go to Kiev or Lviv, you can hear, for example, conversations about the exhibition. Someone says, “Oh, the photo exhibition has opened!”. The second person replies, “Oh, it's about war again.” This has already affected everyone so much that it is necessary to find solutions that would interest people in the topic of war. Unfortunately, this is such a stage now. I try to both use techniques and think more. Finding new solutions requires thinking and reading more. It can be any literature that can inspire and motivate action. Everyone finds the right path for himself.
Alexander Magula:
I would like to go back to how photography in Kharkov changed. The shelling of the city continues and people are learning to just live with it. I see more and more photos as photographers try to capture this routine in the intervals between arrivals. For example, it inspires me, it pleases me.
I don't live in Kharkiv now, but I look at photos of Sergei Korovainy, Roman Pylypey, Yakov Lyashenko. I really liked Lyashenko's series about the zoo. The routine of people living in this horror and just trying to live a normal life. I really like George's series about the family in Izyum in Kharkiv region. Such a very intimate series. It seems to me that this is how photography in Kharkov began to change, it is immersed in everyday life.
Yakov Lyashenko:
When it all started, there was a concentration of horror, and I didn't even want to film the routine. There were many events on the outskirts of the city, sometimes in the center of Kharkov: missiles arrived, artillery, “Grad” worked, and life was imperceptible. Everyone was sitting in basements, someone lived in the subway. Now people are used to it. However, I remember the period in 2022, the summer when the artillery no longer fired into the city, and the Russian military every day, like clockwork, fired S-300 missiles. We could even check the clock — at exactly 10 p.m., a rocket arrived. You look at the clock and hear an explosion outside the window. It was every day. Then they changed the time and everything repeated at 4 in the morning. You walk through the city, you see people everywhere who have not slept, because at 4 in the morning a rocket arrives.
Now sometimes I photograph everyday life in Kharkov, because it is interesting and there is something to shoot. I go, I shoot people in the zoo, on the streets of the city, and everyone reacts normally to the camera. In 2022, when it all started, it was extremely difficult to shoot because everyone was pretty aggressive about the cameras. I was attacked twice, almost smashed my car. It was possible to film the life of people in the subway. However, people did not want to communicate, let alone photos. I understand that every day hundreds of journalists come, film how they live, and people want privacy, want a normal life simply. They don't want to live in the subway, they want to live in their apartments, but they can't. At that time, it was almost impossible to shoot it. There were hardly any people on the streets.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
A series of photos about the family from Izyum in Kharkiv region has not been published. I met these people by chance a few months after the de-occupation of Kharkiv region. We stayed with them for the evening. They had no light, no water, nothing. For almost a year and a half, I visited them on the way to Donetsk region or from Donetsk region. They had a vacant apartment and we stayed there. We just talked, found some kind of common language, and I really fit into this party. These are super-cool, extraordinary people who live lives. However, I did not photograph them. I started shooting them just a few months ago, and now I understand why I photograph them, why it is important. This is the ordinary life of people who have experienced very uncool emotions, pictures and all that. People now live, work, have problems, die from common diseases, that is, life has not gone anywhere. In addition to the war there is another thing that has always been, there are these all the problems that were before that.
Alexander Magula:
Now war is still piling up on ordinary problems. When I watched this series about Raisin, I really liked it. Because what we know from the photos of Ryazum are the mass burials, the first days of exhumation. For example, it is important for me to see this life of ordinary people who have stayed to live there. Because the portrait of the city is not only news, but also the stories of the people who stayed there.
It is important to shoot people and remember the issue of ethics. When there was the last arrival on the “Epicenter”, a lot of photographers filmed the body of the deceased, which lay a little further, covered with a thermal blanket. It was important for me not to show the face of this man, to photograph him so that he could not be recognized by the photo. I do not in any way condemn the colleagues who filmed this man with an open face. Because it's about efficiency, about trying to quickly show this horror when dead people are lying in the middle of the street.
I will also tell you about the manifestation of empathy in photography. When there was a rocket attack on the Thunderstorm, my colleague from the Social Nastya Ivantsev and I were doing a story about the Mukhovaty family. My brother and sister died in a cafe, mom, dad and grandmother. It was news, but it was important for us to make this story well. We spent five days on it. I felt very sorry for this family. It was very important for me to show these people with maximum empathy, and, again, to show them up close, inside their home, when their parents left and did not return. Now these children are alone in the house. I was ready to sacrifice even the promptness, informativeness of the staff. My colleague and I were discussing how we could make this story whole. We filmed several stages: here we met them, they set pegs in the cemetery where their family will be buried. The next day, their friends, also children, came to help them dig these graves. On the third and fourth days there were the first burials. Sasha asked us not to film the burial of his parents. We understood that in order for the story to be complete, we needed to remove the burial of our parents. However, he asked and we did not shoot, we left. We decided that empathy and ethics are more important in this moment than a whole or not a whole story.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I've also been to the burials at Thunder. They took place for several days, probably more than a week, because so many people died. There were many journalists, both Ukrainian and foreign. At one point, when the body was brought in, most of the foreign journalists behaved rather badly. Everyone noticed that the “westerners” were just a dick. All Ukrainian journalists were as empathetic as possible to the feelings of relatives who experienced mourning. The main thing for foreign photographers was to make a bright shot at any price. Perhaps over time we have come to the conclusion that for us what is happening in our country is not just documentation at all costs. For all of us, this is our personal story, the history of our country, our family. Maybe that picture that Nick Ut took in Vietnam, we would have taken differently, or not done at all. Because we experience everything personally, and for foreign journalists it's just work.
Yakov Liashenko— Ukrainian photographer from Kharkov. He began his professional career in 2012. After the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he worked as a fixer for well-known photographers and in parallel documented the events of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Currently, Yakov is a soldier-photographer of the special purpose battalion “Donbass” of the 18th Slavic Brigade of the NGU.
Author's social networks: Instagram, Facebook.
Heorhii Ivanchenko— Ukrainian photographer, who since February 2022 works as a freelance reporter in the field of documentary and journalistic photography.
From the first months of the invasion, he filmed for the Associated Press and the European Pressphoto Agency. Starting from Borodyan, where George was born, he continued with the front line: Nikolaev region, Kharkiv region, Kherson region. Now his attention is focused on the Donetsk region.
The turning point in his photography was almost a month spent in Bakhmut. Throughout December and January, George documented the lives of the townspeople, carrying a backpack and sleeping bag, sharing life with local volunteers, doctors, military and firefighters in the basements.
Author's social networks: Instagram, Facebook.
Oleksandr Magula— photographer from Kharkov. Journalist Social News in Kyiv. He studied journalism at Kharkiv National University named after V. N.D. Karazin. Before the war, he worked in the local media. Collaborated with the largest German-language print publications in Europe (NZZ, FAZ, TAZ, Focus, DerStandard).
Author's social networks: Instagram, Facebook.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Katya Moskalyuk
Literary Editor: Julia Futei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
The material was created with the support of The Fritt Ord Foundation.
We continue with a series of interviews with professional Ukrainian documentarians.
We talked about the experience of filming the war, empathy in work and the hometown of Kharkiv with Georgy Ivanchenko, Yakov Lyashenko and Oleksandr Magula.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
With photography, I began to work with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. I deal with documentary, journalism, but for a long time I could not decide whether I was a documentary photographer or a photojournalist. First of all, I am a non-profit photographer. I am very close to the thesis of Max Dondyuk, who wrote: “Photographer in the field of journalism and documentary.”
Alexander Magula:
I never thought of myself as a documentary filmmaker. First of all, I associate myself with a journalist, because I am a journalist by education, and in my work I use primarily techniques from journalism, not from documentary. And I think that most of the photos I take are still more related to journalism. Documentary photography for me is more artistic, more thoughtful. Instead, I am more guided by journalistic techniques. But, even working in a journalistic format, I take a lot of photos, and maybe out of a hundred news photos, one becomes an important document.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I also feel more attached to photojournalism because my work is not always documentary. There are many events happening in Kharkiv region, in Ukraine, which we document, but more as photojournalists.
Alexander Magula:
The main technique of photojournalism is efficiency. Everything happens very quickly in news photos. Such a photo lives in the information stream, no matter how sad it may be, for two or three days, if the event is such that it goes beyond, then maybe a week. Therefore, yes, the main technique is to react quickly, quickly appear on the scene, and quickly return the frames to the editorial office.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I came from commercial photography. I did a lot of reportage photography, and I always liked it. In fact, what I do now has the same goal — documenting, photographing what is happening around you. I fundamentally never influence the frame, I do not tell anyone how or where to stand, where to look. This is exactly a photograph of what is really happening.
Alexander Magula:
I have been shooting since I was a child, since childhood, from the age of 12. I drew graffiti with my friends and I wanted my drawings to look good in the photo. I was not satisfied with the photos on the phone, and I began to shoot. First on the film, because that was the fashion. Gradually, it was the pictures of the drawings that ceased to interest me. I began to be interested in the creation process itself: how my friends draw, how they go to draw, how they return. And in fact, it was also a kind of reporter shooting, just from inside the process. Gradually, I came to the conclusion that graffiti is such a peculiar genre of art, where some plots are constantly repeated. My personal story is also intertwined with the journey into journalism. My family is from Donbas. When the war began in 2014, I saw that no one, for example, among my classmates, knew what was happening in the same Debaltseve. It surprised me a lot. I have this inner urge to communicate to people, to their information bubble, that something bad is going on. So I decided that I like to photograph, I decided to enter journalism and came to the conclusion that I was attracted to photojournalism. Thus, from the first year of university, I began to shoot already in this genre.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
If it is very simple, then as a child, at the age of 10, I was lured by the viewfinder of my mother's camera. She showed me sometimes, I watched. And everything somehow looked so very different than in reality, although it was broadcasting ordinary reality. That's where it all started. These are the first, perhaps, the basics, steps to acquaintance with photography. However, I started keeping my camera on my own at the age of 17. I walked, filmed something on the street, somehow understood slowly, learned that there are different ways, different animals, how and what can be shown. However, perhaps, such a moment of quintessence was the admission to Lviv Polytechnic at the Faculty of Journalism. I had high expectations that I would have mentors who could lead me into this world. Why did I like this social photo at all? This is documentary, journalism. I realized that you can not just shoot a street, where you need to catch shadows or something unusual and beautiful, but you can do something similar, but in those moments when it is a socially significant thing in the history of a family, people, city, country, world.
I was influenced by the story of journalist Gareth Jones. But I have not seen his pictures. I read the book, heard the story, saw the movie, but I didn't see the pictures. The joke is that he is the first Welshman who came and showed the whole world that there is a Holodomor in Ukraine. And it struck me that a person with a camera, with a text, could tell something from another part of the world, something socially important that no one dared to talk about. It is no longer even about photography and not about text, but about curiosity and investigation, about the direction of movement in journalism.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
When I studied for half a year at the university, a full-scale invasion began and I left Lviv to shoot. I knew I needed to take pictures. He filmed volunteers at the station for a week and then left. I looked at a lot of pictures by photographers from the Magnum agency, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eliot Hervit, Robert Capa and others. Their photos led me to the decision that we had to go and shoot.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I have a slightly different story as I got into documentary photography. At the beginning of a full-scale war, he worked as a fixer. A friend suggested I try it. At that point, I didn't even know what fixation was. My first photographers that I helped were precisely documentarians, with work experience, and they inspired me. For example, James Nachtway. However, I realized that they come, shoot and move on. However, the war does not end, and you need to do it every day. At that point, I was just starting out and did not yet know how to work in the war. However, I gained a lot of experience with photographers.
I started working in Kharkov, because then it was one of the epicenters of events. Of course, there was a war in the Donbas and in Kherson, but I was in Kharkov, I knew the city, I knew everything that was needed to work here.
Yakov Lyashenko:
At the time of the beginning of a full-scale war, I had a creative crisis. At that time, I rarely took pictures, even took a camera in my hands. I worked a lot before that, maybe a little burned out, and the format in which I worked did not suit me anymore. I wanted to take a break. However, at the beginning of the war I started working with prominent photographers, especially such as Nachtway, and that inspired me super. I saw how it works and how it communicates with people.
I watched photographers from morning to evening, analyzed how they work, what methods they use. I'm not talking about setting up the camera, I'm talking about finding the moment, choosing a frame. I was fascinated by it and I knew I wanted to shoot. I then shot a little on the film and on the figure. Later I realized that I no longer wanted to be a fixer, but wanted to photograph and document myself.
Alexander Magula:
My family is from Debaltseve, so I have my motivation to take pictures. I decided in the first year that I wanted to shoot. Now it's even a little embarrassing to say that I dreamed of becoming a military photographer. I always thought I would go somewhere in the Donbas. When the war came to Kharkiv itself, I realized that we must be more careful with my desires, because they can become a reality.
In 2019 or 2020, I met German journalists in Berlin by chance. They told me about their experience in Syria, in Afghanistan. We have established a good contact. When the full-scale invasion began, I also had a creative crisis in photography. At that point, I barely touched the camera. Before full-scale, I worked for a year at the university as a journalist, videographer, it was a superlocal publication. I burned out, thoughts began to occur to me that I did not want to do this. A month after February 24, I received a message from a friend from Germany: “I remember our conversation and that you told me that you wanted to shoot. I'm going to Ukraine, the time has come — let's try it.” That's how we united with him. For the first six months, maybe eight months, we worked together as freelancers. Sometimes I helped him, worked with him as a photojournalist, and several times I worked for him as a fixer. I met a French photographer, with whom we are now friends.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
In fact, we did not see war until February 24. And our foreign colleagues, photographers, have such experience. They saw a lot of different surreal pictures that we see now. And so they already have a perception of war, and they apply their experience to Ukrainian realities. It works. Of course, our war is different, but wars are still similar. Our war is completely exclusive in the technologies used, unique in the number of weapons and shells.
Alexander Magula:
My first post was after two months of war. The photos were bought by the German magazine “Focus”. It was a report about Kharkov. He took a series of photographs together with a foreign journalist. This was my first publication in print, my first money earned precisely for photojournalism.
It was a portrait of the commander of “Kraken” Konstantin Nemichev, and these were the infantry positions in Cherkasy Lozova, where then there was conditionally “zero”, the front line Kharkov, North Saltovka. I had an existential crisis at the time, because these are the first days when I really saw houses burning down where I was walking, where my friends lived. When I was sent a PDF of the magazine, I looked at this: “Wow, it turned out!”. However, during the filming everything was like in a fog.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
The first material from a full-scale war that the media bought from me was from the filming of Borodianka after the occupation, where I was born. Then for the first time I worked with a journalist who needed a photographer. Journalist from Belarus, we became very friends with him, went to shoot the liberated Chernihiv region. It was important for me to share what I saw, to publish my work.
I did not think about money, but at some point one of the journalist's friends saw my photo with him somewhere on Facebook. I was given a contact by the EPA and then for the first time my photo went to the media. It was the village of Senkivka, a very authentic beautiful wooden house located 600 meters from the Russian border and the monument to the three sisters. From there, the Russians poured cassettes, and “Hurricanes”, and everything that they could. Fields in the village are sown with “cassettes”. We wanted to talk to the locals, we were looking for people in this village, and there were very few of them. We knocked on the house and no one opened it. I stood on a bench and looked at what was in the yard, and there was a big “Hurricane” just in the center.
Yakov Lyashenko:
In the beginning, when I worked as a fixer, I photographed for myself, trained, studied, watched more experienced photographers take pictures. My friend Katya arranged an exhibition for me, thank her for this. These were probably my first sold photos. These were not even publications in the media, but it was part of an exhibition in France, for which I was paid the first money. And that was interesting. I posted photos on instagram and the first publication was when Zelensky's official account posted my photos. It was nice.
The picture was from the de-occupation of Kharkiv region. It was the military who were riding on the BMP in Izyum — they smiled, rejoiced and waved at us. I made this frame and it was published. Before that, I just posted photos on social networks and said that you can take my photos, use them. It was important to me that someone saw these photos so that they were not lying on the table. After a year and a half of work as a fixer, he spent the money earned on updating photographic equipment. He also met people from the EPA and since then there have been publications in the media, in the world media.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
If the photos are from the event, they should not lie. However, I think that everyone has something “lying around”. The desire to tell about the events brings us to Kharkov. Obviously, this is the first major city on which there was such a massive blow, on which Russian troops are moving so actively. We know that Kharkov can be lost even before the start of a full-scale invasion. The attack on Kiev was a surprise for us, the attack on Kharkov was not a surprise for anyone. However, there are many internal, invisible events taking place there. I will tell you about the memories of one of those who led the defense of Saltovka. He counted 15 minutes for the first three days, that is, lived 15 minutes, lasted 15 minutes - that's cool. And it's a completely different sense of time that I don't know anything about. Nothing like that happened in my life, not even during the Russian-Ukrainian war, when my time would be reduced to 15 minutes, so that it would be an achievement, a super gift to survive 15 minutes. And photography is a visual thing that interacts primarily with time, it stops and captures it.
What was the feeling of the first months of the war in Kharkov, what was then wanted from my own photo? How was this all fixed? There are a lot of ways to tell. In the end, what makes a photo a photograph is the meaning you bring there. Then choose a composition and form in order to fix the meaning that you want to convey. The meaning of life in a city under siege, in a city on which the enemy is attacking, in which time is so concentrated, in which everything changes so much. People left, the light disappeared, people began to live in the subway. Everything was changing. And what then was desired at the level of meaning from his photograph, and how did this desired level of meaning provoke form?
Yakov Lyashenko:
All the time at the beginning of the full-scale war I was in Kharkov. Honestly, the first time was super scary. Lack of experience played a big minus. Why did fixation help this? I gained that important experience to be able to concentrate and take pictures in conditions of high stress. I remember my first trip to Saltivka with a French photographer. We just arrived after the “Grad” package was there, literally seven minutes later. I remember taking a picture of one grandmother who came out of her house engulfed in fire. Two other houses nearby also burned. She came out in a robe, in slippers, and it was, if I'm not mistaken, March. She went out, walked around the house, looked at this house. If I had experience working during the war, I could have taken a lot more pictures and better. However, now, if I look back, I understand that I did not fully realize the moment because of fears, ignorance. It was a new experience because I have never worked in places where there is constant shelling, where you can die at any moment. I didn't have the right clothes and equipment that could save lives, I didn't even have a first aid kit. My first first aid kit probably appeared closer to May.
Alexander Magula:
I have a similar story. I came to Saltivka with journalist Philip from Germany. I wanted to continue shooting, just even for myself. We went out to North Saltivka, and also filmed these poor people walking on the wreckage. I agree, if I had the experience, I could have made better shots. However, it was scary and there was no first aid kit. I only had a bulletproof vest and that's it.
We walked, filmed, filmed, met the soldiers. The soldiers began to check on us: “What are you doing here? Do you have a camera, are you a gunner or what are you shooting?” We explained that journalists work here. The soldiers told us, “Get out of here, because now there will be shelling.” Even before the full-scale war, in 2020, I went to “Desna”, received accreditation to the ATO zone. I never had to go there. Then we were told that in a combat zone, always listen to the military. If they say run away, then you have to run away. And that was just such a case. We began with such a slow step to move from an equipped position. The military began to shout at us: “We said run away, do not go, but run!” We ran a hundred meters, crossed the “Rodnik”...
The photos were published on the website of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. It's good that they went somewhere. Because at that moment I was shooting it just for myself. And I also had the feeling that due to lack of experience, I did not do enough. First of all, I didn't make any very, very touching shots. I almost died, but it was an experience when you understand that everything is very serious and basic safety rules should not be neglected.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
My story is also about Rodnik. We passed through this place and I stopped to remove the broken house. For the first time I came under such shelling when the square of your stay covers the “Grad”. If we talk about time, then it really slows down at this point. It was very scary. After that, I realized that the military says to go for a reason.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
The first shelling he came under was in Tsvirkuny in Kharkiv region in May. Then we were winged with “lighters” or phosphorus, it is not clear exactly. There was such a whistle, such a sound, as if the blades of a helicopter were spinning. It crumbles and slowly falls, you know, like such a fireworks salute. We did not understand what was happening and quickly ran to a random grandmother in the basement. There they waited. There were six of us humans, a small basement, but then I realized something else, a little more interesting. Those people were already used to all these things, and this woman says: “Oh, now I'll put the seagulls in the house, I'll bring the seagulls.” We are like, “What?”. As a result, we stayed there for a short time, maybe up to an hour. I saw that grandmother for the first time in my life, and that grandfather. However, war and all the terrible events that happen to you catalyze, I think, absolutely all processes — both growing up and relationships between people. During the hour I spent with my grandmother, I thought that she was closer to me than some distant relative. That is, these relationships, they have contracted over time.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I caught the concentrated time with Nachtway on Saltovka. It was relatively far from North Saltovka, we were in the car with him. A hundred meters from us was a package of “Grad”. The moment you sit in the car and pour a package of “Grad”, you do not realize that it is a hundred meters. It trickles like in chess, and you do not understand whether you are in the epicenter, whether you are on the side, or if it is somewhere far from you at all. By the feeling that you are right in the epicenter. I do not wish this to anyone. I didn't think about the photos at all at that moment.
I have one photograph, taken on film, of the aftermath of the arrival of that Grad package. There were injured people, burned apartments, a destroyed house. It seems to me that I did not capture that condensed time the way I would have liked. I believe that due to lack of work experience precisely in the conditions of war, I was not able to fully recover those first few months before the de-occupation of Cirkuni and the following villages, when shelling of Kharkov decreased greatly.
Alexander Magula:
I think the first photos just have some personal value for everyone. For example, George and I looked at pictures of each other about the beginning of a full-scale invasion. At a distance you see progress in technique, composition and how you gain experience. The first photos were taken intuitively, to the touch, when you just shoot what you see. The first pictures may not be very successful, but personally for you they are valuable. For example, you will open this photo and for the viewer it will be out of context. It can be just some smoke, collapsed buildings. Photography is not something you can be proud of, but there is a story behind it.
I am reminded of two pictures. The moment I photographed the collapsed entrance. There is nothing super special about this photo. However, I know that two minutes after the picture, the package of “Grad” arrived and I was very creepy there. The second photo, which I can call more successful, is a portrait of the commander of “Kraken” in the destroyed Regional State Administration. Then a rocket flew there. The attitude towards the military was, as I felt at the time, as if towards the gods. These are the people who can protect us, on whom all hope. The portrait of this commander is my personal embodiment of the attitude towards one of those men who defend Kharkiv, on whom the responsibility lies. All people are waiting for some kind of post from him, operational information that “Kraken” liberated new villages. I remember these first de-occupied villages, which Kraken liberated with other units. People had a very reverent attitude towards the military.
Yakov Lyashenko:
As for me, Kharkiv has changed a lot. When the artillery could no longer fire on Kharkov because of the long distance, people began to return en masse to the city. Before that, Kharkiv was empty. When the Circuses were liberated, when they liberated Vilkhivka, when they liberated Ruska Lozova, then people began to return little by little. This also affected the shooting, there were much fewer topics for filming. It's true. When artillery was shelling the city every day, the districts of Saltovka, Pyatikhatka were in turmoil, people lived in the metro, someone had no water, no light, nothing; he was shooting constantly. However, Kharkiv is a big city and not everything looks like Northern Saltovka. I came home from filming, I had internet, heating and even hot water. At home it was like another world. I think it was worth fixing the “two Kharkov”. I am glad that there are areas in Kharkov that are not destroyed, which were not fired at by artillery.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
At the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, KABs arrived in Nikolaev every day. As an alarm clock — from five to nine in the morning, from five to ten CABs flew. Five-story buildings were torn down, people died. I photographed everything I saw, shot the news. We heard that something flew - we left.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
Topic selection is based on experience. You first start working with events, with socially important materials. Then you understand that something is missing, that you need to change approaches to work. I stopped being interested in purely informational photography, because these topics can be shown a little differently. And what impact does that have now? Aren't the same arrival cards enough now? And do I need them now, because there are people who do it, and it's good that they do it. You ask yourself questions, you try to change technical, visual, conceptual solutions, you think how to show the theme of war, invasion, to make it interesting. When you go to Kiev or Lviv, you can hear, for example, conversations about the exhibition. Someone says, “Oh, the photo exhibition has opened!”. The second person replies, “Oh, it's about war again.” This has already affected everyone so much that it is necessary to find solutions that would interest people in the topic of war. Unfortunately, this is such a stage now. I try to both use techniques and think more. Finding new solutions requires thinking and reading more. It can be any literature that can inspire and motivate action. Everyone finds the right path for himself.
Alexander Magula:
I would like to go back to how photography in Kharkov changed. The shelling of the city continues and people are learning to just live with it. I see more and more photos as photographers try to capture this routine in the intervals between arrivals. For example, it inspires me, it pleases me.
I don't live in Kharkiv now, but I look at photos of Sergei Korovainy, Roman Pylypey, Yakov Lyashenko. I really liked Lyashenko's series about the zoo. The routine of people living in this horror and just trying to live a normal life. I really like George's series about the family in Izyum in Kharkiv region. Such a very intimate series. It seems to me that this is how photography in Kharkov began to change, it is immersed in everyday life.
Yakov Lyashenko:
When it all started, there was a concentration of horror, and I didn't even want to film the routine. There were many events on the outskirts of the city, sometimes in the center of Kharkov: missiles arrived, artillery, “Grad” worked, and life was imperceptible. Everyone was sitting in basements, someone lived in the subway. Now people are used to it. However, I remember the period in 2022, the summer when the artillery no longer fired into the city, and the Russian military every day, like clockwork, fired S-300 missiles. We could even check the clock — at exactly 10 p.m., a rocket arrived. You look at the clock and hear an explosion outside the window. It was every day. Then they changed the time and everything repeated at 4 in the morning. You walk through the city, you see people everywhere who have not slept, because at 4 in the morning a rocket arrives.
Now sometimes I photograph everyday life in Kharkov, because it is interesting and there is something to shoot. I go, I shoot people in the zoo, on the streets of the city, and everyone reacts normally to the camera. In 2022, when it all started, it was extremely difficult to shoot because everyone was pretty aggressive about the cameras. I was attacked twice, almost smashed my car. It was possible to film the life of people in the subway. However, people did not want to communicate, let alone photos. I understand that every day hundreds of journalists come, film how they live, and people want privacy, want a normal life simply. They don't want to live in the subway, they want to live in their apartments, but they can't. At that time, it was almost impossible to shoot it. There were hardly any people on the streets.
Georgy Ivanchenko:
A series of photos about the family from Izyum in Kharkiv region has not been published. I met these people by chance a few months after the de-occupation of Kharkiv region. We stayed with them for the evening. They had no light, no water, nothing. For almost a year and a half, I visited them on the way to Donetsk region or from Donetsk region. They had a vacant apartment and we stayed there. We just talked, found some kind of common language, and I really fit into this party. These are super-cool, extraordinary people who live lives. However, I did not photograph them. I started shooting them just a few months ago, and now I understand why I photograph them, why it is important. This is the ordinary life of people who have experienced very uncool emotions, pictures and all that. People now live, work, have problems, die from common diseases, that is, life has not gone anywhere. In addition to the war there is another thing that has always been, there are these all the problems that were before that.
Alexander Magula:
Now war is still piling up on ordinary problems. When I watched this series about Raisin, I really liked it. Because what we know from the photos of Ryazum are the mass burials, the first days of exhumation. For example, it is important for me to see this life of ordinary people who have stayed to live there. Because the portrait of the city is not only news, but also the stories of the people who stayed there.
It is important to shoot people and remember the issue of ethics. When there was the last arrival on the “Epicenter”, a lot of photographers filmed the body of the deceased, which lay a little further, covered with a thermal blanket. It was important for me not to show the face of this man, to photograph him so that he could not be recognized by the photo. I do not in any way condemn the colleagues who filmed this man with an open face. Because it's about efficiency, about trying to quickly show this horror when dead people are lying in the middle of the street.
I will also tell you about the manifestation of empathy in photography. When there was a rocket attack on the Thunderstorm, my colleague from the Social Nastya Ivantsev and I were doing a story about the Mukhovaty family. My brother and sister died in a cafe, mom, dad and grandmother. It was news, but it was important for us to make this story well. We spent five days on it. I felt very sorry for this family. It was very important for me to show these people with maximum empathy, and, again, to show them up close, inside their home, when their parents left and did not return. Now these children are alone in the house. I was ready to sacrifice even the promptness, informativeness of the staff. My colleague and I were discussing how we could make this story whole. We filmed several stages: here we met them, they set pegs in the cemetery where their family will be buried. The next day, their friends, also children, came to help them dig these graves. On the third and fourth days there were the first burials. Sasha asked us not to film the burial of his parents. We understood that in order for the story to be complete, we needed to remove the burial of our parents. However, he asked and we did not shoot, we left. We decided that empathy and ethics are more important in this moment than a whole or not a whole story.
Yakov Lyashenko:
I've also been to the burials at Thunder. They took place for several days, probably more than a week, because so many people died. There were many journalists, both Ukrainian and foreign. At one point, when the body was brought in, most of the foreign journalists behaved rather badly. Everyone noticed that the “westerners” were just a dick. All Ukrainian journalists were as empathetic as possible to the feelings of relatives who experienced mourning. The main thing for foreign photographers was to make a bright shot at any price. Perhaps over time we have come to the conclusion that for us what is happening in our country is not just documentation at all costs. For all of us, this is our personal story, the history of our country, our family. Maybe that picture that Nick Ut took in Vietnam, we would have taken differently, or not done at all. Because we experience everything personally, and for foreign journalists it's just work.
Yakov Liashenko— Ukrainian photographer from Kharkov. He began his professional career in 2012. After the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he worked as a fixer for well-known photographers and in parallel documented the events of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Currently, Yakov is a soldier-photographer of the special purpose battalion “Donbass” of the 18th Slavic Brigade of the NGU.
Author's social networks: Instagram, Facebook.
Heorhii Ivanchenko— Ukrainian photographer, who since February 2022 works as a freelance reporter in the field of documentary and journalistic photography.
From the first months of the invasion, he filmed for the Associated Press and the European Pressphoto Agency. Starting from Borodyan, where George was born, he continued with the front line: Nikolaev region, Kharkiv region, Kherson region. Now his attention is focused on the Donetsk region.
The turning point in his photography was almost a month spent in Bakhmut. Throughout December and January, George documented the lives of the townspeople, carrying a backpack and sleeping bag, sharing life with local volunteers, doctors, military and firefighters in the basements.
Author's social networks: Instagram, Facebook.
Oleksandr Magula— photographer from Kharkov. Journalist Social News in Kyiv. He studied journalism at Kharkiv National University named after V. N.D. Karazin. Before the war, he worked in the local media. Collaborated with the largest German-language print publications in Europe (NZZ, FAZ, TAZ, Focus, DerStandard).
Author's social networks: Instagram, Facebook.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Katya Moskalyuk
Literary Editor: Julia Futei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
The material was created with the support of The Fritt Ord Foundation.
UAPP is an independent association of professional Ukrainian photographers, designed to protect their interests, support, develop and promote Ukrainian photography as an important element of national culture.
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