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‘I LEFT EVERYTHING BEHIND’

Saturday, March 5, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we talk to—and comfort—new refugees from Ukraine. Plus, bringing dignity to a pandemic; portraits of ‘Abe’; this week’s Nat Geo News Quiz … and the dogs that make Westminster best in show.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANASTASIA TAYLOR-LIND

By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences

In February 2014, when Anastasia Taylor-Lind arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine, Independence Square was under siege. Anastasia improvised, creating a photo studio with a simple black curtain, just off stage from the violence, and made a series of portraits of protesters and mourners.

Eight years later, Anastasia arrived in Przemyśl, Poland, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine. She again set up a makeshift studio, this time outside the Juliusza Slowackiego High School, and spent time with some of the million Ukrainians who have fled their homeland in the past week. Anastasia talked, listened, comforted—and, eventually, made these images.

Everyone had just arrived on the same day Anastasia photographed them. “A lot of trauma here,” she told us. This was the first time on their journey that they could stop in a safe place.

Anastasia’s intimate portraits capture the struggle of the last week–and so much more. They included med student Blessing Oyeleke (pictured above) from Nigeria, struggling to cross the border. A Bible-carrying 72-year-old woman, Lyudmyla Kuchebko Kyivska (at top). A mother and baby, fleeing war in Ukraine for the second time in less than a decade. And a family–mothers, children, even a dog–minus the men, who were required to remain on the other side of the border to fight.

Anastasia, whose life was at the center of this Nat Geo podcast episode on combat journalism, had not only lived in Ukraine, she had witnessed the ethnic cleansing in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Armenia and Azerbaijan. In recent days, Anastasia has had to help people who suddenly broke down because they mistook, for example, the sound of an ambulance for an air-raid siren.

The longtime photojournalist says the situation is messy emotionally for her as well. “I have so many friends in Ukraine. And it’s just sad and frightening.“

Below are her portraits of 12 more of the Ukrainian refugees. The full story from Anastasia and Nat Geo Explorer Davide Monteleone, with stories from the refugees in their own words, is here.

Clockwise from top left, Anna Bianova, 34, who fled the town of Kalynivka with two 11 year olds—her son, Maksym (in a blue hat) and nephew Myhaylo Bianov—and Myhaylo’s dog, Archie; upper right, Iryna Butenko hugs her daughter, Kateryna Falchenko, after the two escaped Kharkiv; below right, Valentyna Turchyn (left) stands with her three daughters—Maya (5), Tanya (7) and Galyna (16, at far right)—and her mother, also Valentyna (at center). At bottom left, sisters Ludmyla and Nelya Tkachenko fled Kyiv. All stayed for a night or so at the Polish school before moving on.

“We don’t need much,” said one refugee, Lidiya Ivanenko. “A warm corner is enough.”

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STORIES WE’RE TRACKING

PHOTOGRAPH BY TODD HEISLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

R.I.P. legendary photo director Michele McNally, pictured above (New York Times)

Video: Why there’s more to shipwrecks than just buried treasure (Nat Geo)

Would these face mask designs have made protecting yourself, others easier to take? (Nat Geo)

A photographer’s haunting street photos of San Francisco coated in fog (PetaPixel)

Think you’re smart? Try this week’s Nat Geo News Quiz

PHOTO OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY @DINA_LITOVSKY

Best in show: This year’s Westminster Dog Show may have been pushed back because of COVID, but our Instagram page reached back to 2018 to show Savannah, a three-year-old miniature poodle from Minnesota, getting spritzed with hair spray at that show. Photographer Dina Litovsky covered the glamorous behind-the-scenes Westminster story then. This year’s show happens in June. Catch more archival images through our curated Photo of the Day feature.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARICEU ERTHAL

Mariceu Erthal is one of 80-some photographers for Nat Geo who have shown the world’s transformation over the past two years with COVID-19. In July 2020, she decided to get away for her first trip to the sea since the pandemic took hold. This self-portrait shows her in the surf of the Gulf of Mexico in Veracruz. The waters “brought me peace of mind and allowed me to observe the sadness and anxieties I had inside,” Mariceu says for this Nat Geo compilation of photographs, which showcases humanity throughout the scourge.

IN A FEW WORDS

QUOTE

[War is] not a woman’s place. There’s no question. There’s only one other species on Earth for whom a war zone is no place, and that’s men. But as long as men continue to fight wars, why, I think observers of both sexes will be sent to see what happens.

Dickey Chapelle

Nat Geo photographer who covered WWII through the Vietnam War; first female U.S. war correspondent killed in combat

Inside the daring life of a forgotten female war photographer

LAST GLIMPSE

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GRETA PRATT

Learning through Abe: Can you understand democracy by its heroic figures? That was Greta Pratt’s goal in creating portraits of historic reenactors for her series Nineteen Lincolns. “My intention is to comment on the way a society, composed of individuals, is held together through the creation of its history and heroic figures,” she says in the April edition of National Geographic. Pictured here are Robert Taylor and Mike Reiser (seated) and Randy Duncan.

SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE

A final note: Many readers have been troubled by the attack on Ukraine. Here is a list of nonprofits working to help Ukrainians with food, medicine, and shelter.

This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. Thanks for reading!

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