Student Galleries - Photography 2022

Individual Galleries Students were asked to select work that they created, that they were proud of.

They could use work from earlier in the year or create new work.

They were then asked to make a statement about the selected work that was personal, honest and specific.

Finally they were asked to design a gallery wall that displayed it in a way that satisfied their personal aesthetic and best showcased their choices.

Viktoria S - Artist Statement As an AP art and Photography II student, I consider myself to have the opportunity to be artistic more often. With my work, I want to experiment and mix things up. Having both classes allows me to be as creative as I want, while also learning new skills that will help me enhance my work and creativity.

Taking photographs and creating art allows me to express myself and my perspective on the world. Every prompt encourages me to show a different side of myself. Which I am usually unable to do with words. I haven't developed a regular style yet, but I enjoy photographing everyday life and people. Even if it's difficult to avoid appearing creepy while taking such images. Regarding my artwork other than photography, I like to employ pastel hues and use anonymity, (I do not represent faces clearly.) This helps people connect better with my work.

One of the most difficult challenges I've had was to be more daring with my photography. Getting permission to photograph individuals or asking them to pose for me. With my artwork I have had a rough time finding the right composition and original reference photos. At the end every person is affected differently by my work. It might be the color palette or the facial expressions, or lack thereof. Color, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value are all components of the art that I employ to express myself and make my work more appealing to the eye.

Taking pictures or painting art each has their own advantages and disadvantages.

People may prefer one over the other, yet they both assist artists in expressing themselves and allowing others to perceive the world from diverse angles.

I think that's wonderful.

Viktoria S.

Childhood Shenanigans

Telescope Stalker

Viktoria S - Artist Statement ...see page 4.

Viktoria S.

Little World

Last Hope

Falling Apart

Nina M. - Artist Statement The three pictures that I have chosen, I believe, represent how I’ve been feeling in the past few months. The people in the picture and myself may not have the same life or the story, but I think we share the same emotions, even if for different reasons.

“Solitude” represents being able to be on your own; whether that is because you have to or you want. My friends and I, as well as many people from Ukraine who had to leave their homes and friends, have come in contact with solitude. Because we are forced to be separated and unable to see each other on a daily basis like we used to, we are forced to be alone with ourselves. The second picture, “Need” represents how different people have different needs. The lady in the picture most likely needs money. There are so many simple needs that many didn’t think about because they always seemed so accessible.

But with the war, our needs have changed. We began to reevaluate our comforts. The last picture, “Content” I believe works best to be put at the end. Throughout our experiences, we learn how to be content with what we have. We begin to appreciate the solitude (as the man in the picture does) and learn to get over/learn to live without what we believed were our needs.

The intention behind the pictures I have taken was to show people in different habitats as well as to show how everyone's lives and stories are different. The intention began from the concept of street photography. I was walking around Tbilisi and capturing pictures of people’s various interactions and actions that they were doing. However, these three stood out to me the most and went along well together.

The idea of taking pictures of people without their permission in order to capture the most natural and candid pictures, I think, was the biggest obstacle I came across. A lot of times, I got blurry, unfocused, and simply put, bad pictures because I wanted to snap them quickly before they noticed I ever even took it and made them feel uncomfortable. However, the more I did it, the more comfortable I became with the concept became easier to get high-quality pictures.

While taking and choosing the pictures I looked at a few things. First, if the stories of the pictures I have chosen went well together. Second the position of each subject and how it continued to show the story that I wanted to portray. I also focused on colors; the brightness in “Content” is higher than it is in “Need” which I think goes very well with the story. The brightness in “Solitude” was kept the same.

Overall, these are some of my favorite pictures I have taken this year. I think it shows growth in my skills, although the photos appear to be fairly simple. They forced me to get out of my comfort zone and taught me to unapologetically take pictures that I believe are important for others to see. Pictures that can tell a story that people can relate, to one way or another.

Solitude

Need

Content

Nina M.

Carver G - Artist Statement The 2 photos that I decided to showcase were taken in Bratislava as that is where I have been for the last few months. My intention at first was to highlight how you can escape from reality. When I am running I feel detached from reality and I wanted to capture that feeling with the photo “Where.” However, Both of the photos that I chose were taken out of the blue. I was doing something else and then I’d look around and decide that I wanted to remember where I was at that moment.

For both of the showcased photos, I acted rather impulsively and simply took the photos. For the first photo, I was running stairs, and when I reached the top I crumpled to the ground onto my back as I was screaming for air. When I finally regained my breath, I opened my eyes to look up at the sky. To my surprise, an airplane came out of a cloud, and I watched it soar across the sky for a second before deciding to take a photo with my phone. As much as it was a cool photo, I also wanted to take it to remember the moment I was in. So in a way, my photo had nothing to do with the clouds and the plane in the shot. It was a reminder of me on my back staring up at the sky while my heart was pounding. Taking the photo looking straight up gives the sky a 2D effect The colored image shows a light blue sky with a couple clouds and a small little plane coming out of one. The white of the plane and the blue of the sky contrasts making it easy to distinguish the plane from the clouds and tree branch. "Infinity" however, has a more evident sense of distance and depth as the rail road goes on forever. On either side there are trees and lamp posts that repeat as far as the eye can see. When I took it I was on a hike so I had to steady myself and try to center myself on the tracks so that the lines were not skewed. This was me trying to get the infinity effect as if the train track continued forever. When you look at the photo there is a point where the picture disappears and there is nothing at the end. The leading lines draw the eye as far as it can see before you reach the disappearing point at the top of the photo. In post, I changed it to black and white and turned up the contrast so that the track stood out as the lines the eye should follow.

Ami P - Artist Statement The 3 photos that I chose to display are recent photos taken from my stay in Ho Chi Minh Vietnam. I haven't been back to Vietnam in ages, and finally coming back has made me realize how much it differs to Ukraine. I spent my first few weeks exploring the city and everything that stood out to me I took photos of.

The photo Skyline, Streets, and Surrounded are all things that stood out to me for being different and new. The beautiful skyline filled with towering buildings and skyscrapers compared to Ukraine’s more modest approach and smaller old houses were a welcome but unusual sight. The claustrophobic streets of Vietnam filled by speeding motorcycles, and loud engines were not. And the small spaces where buildings and skyscrapers towered over one another, made for amazing photos. These photos of the city really made me realize how different my lifestyle and surroundings have changed over only a week.

“Skyline” was taken on the 70th floor of the tallest building in Vietnam (Landmark 81). It is a shot that really shows the extent of the overpopulation, pollution, and lack of space that makes Vietnam really differ. The stark contrast between the coloured city lights, and the dark sky is what makes the photo pop. I did edit the photo by turning up the blacks a little bit. Because of the light pollution, Vietnam is never fully dark, and the skies hold an ever so gray tint. The elements of this photo are colour, and contrast.

“Streets” took several attempts to shoot, and I shot it using long shutter speed to get the motion blur. This blur really shows how fast and rushed the city is. In the background a family run fruit shop. People in the shop are still and sharp, as the city moves all around them. I think this can symbolize the past months with evacuating. We feel so trapped and slow, but everything around us is moving so quickly. Within only a week or two, going from a full school, to everyone evacuating, to the majority of KIS students transferring to other schools. To me, these past few months have really been a fever dream. Elements to this photo includes the rule of thirds, and long shutter speed.

“Surrounded” was taken as I was walking in an apartment complex. As I looked up, there was tall apartment buildings all around me. In every direction I looked was another tall tower. It was really claustrophobic, and made you seem really small. Compared to Ukraine's empty streets, wide sidewalks, and fresh air, it was a quite drastic change. Elements of this photo includes colour, contrast, and the angle that it was shot at.

Streets

Skyline

Ami. P

Surrounded

ARTIST STATEMENT - Zoltan S. I'm not too keen on the idea of providing additional explanation for a freely interpretable work. Art, or more specifically photography, should have an almost innate connection with the audience without the artist having to do convincing or explaining outside of the medium, but alas...

The three pictures I have decided to present were taken at three different points during this school year. Despite the titles, I wouldn't say they have some sort of shared theme or idea, and stylistically they are quite different. Perhaps the connective tissue is in the method of their capture, which was more opportunistic than anything else.

The first picture is of a particularly run-down building I used to walk past every day on my way to school. On one December morning, I noticed firefighters hosing down the building as it was smoking, and a few days later, I captured the aftermath. With the help of a nearby tunnel I was able to assign my own narrative to the image, which is reflected in its title.

The rightmost picture is of a neighbour's house at what used to be my grandparents' home. The place obviously carries a lot of emotional baggage for me, and I thought that I may capture something reflective of that in an interesting manner. I felt as though the dark branches of a nearby tree provided a nice aesthetic to the flat backdrop of the house wall. Combined with the interpretable nature of it, I consider it a decent image.

The last image, I would imagine, is the most controversial one as it exists more along the lines of abstract works. I don't have anything against abstract, as assigning limiting factors to what constitutes art is a bit ridiculous to me. However that isn't to say that abstract pieces, like all other genres, have varying levels of artistic merit and more often than not, these works don't realize their potential. My real intention with this picture were to highlight a more intesive mental state, which I combined with the emotional resonance of the other two pictures using title. I don't think its at all important what the objects and light sources are in the picture, its more their effect that I value.

I think perhaps the most important takeaway from this exhibition, or at least this part of the exhibition is that we tend to focus on the "wrong" aspects of life. We can always wish for better, torture ourselves with how much better things could be instead of how they are, and we egt caught up in this phenomena. Kind of like getting stuck analyzing pictures, instead of letting them engage and overwhelm us with their most natural attributes.

Too High, Too Nice

High Hopes

Zoltan S.

Nice Dreams

Rafał - Artist Statement All pictures display nature and human life in collaboration. I decided to show those three together since clearly those are connected. all photos were taken in same park in the same day and all include birds as the main part of a message.

Picture "Steady" is showing not only calmness and self balance, but also the result of that. That result is trust and agreement which benefits everyone. Girl is enjoying close contact with birds and feathered are enjoying the food they get. This shows that it is worth it to lend a hand (here literally) to get closer to each other.However, getting closer is not the last step that is presented. The next shot titled "Secure" is of a duck keeping guard for it's safety, and the safety of the other duck. Protecting is a nice and important thing to do in the service of the rule "it is better to prevent than cure". That is a great sign of a healthy relationship. Talking about healthy relationships it is also important to spend valuable time together simply improving existing relations as it is shown on the last image "Together".

I chose nature and animals to focus more on the message, since when we as humans differ from other species, we can still recognize familiar behaviors and meaning of them. It can also help to understand that even such drastic differences of shapes of our bodies aren't making a big gap between how we see each other as living creatures, and so our external features don't matter.

secure

steady

Rafał

together

Illia S- Artist Statement For this project, I chose to pick my three most favorite photos that fit together. These photos are all connected because they have a story to them. My photos are called: success, unlikely, and hope.

My intention in all of these photos was simple, to tell a story. That is also the thing that they have in common which most of my works don't have. In the first photo, I wanted to tell a story of succeeding, in the second a story of unlikely friends being together, and in the third being outnumbered and not knowing what to do, but seeing a glimpse of hope.

When choosing what to include in this project, I looked for three things. 1. The photos were good visually, 2. They were more than just good photos visually, but also told a story, and 3. They went together well, in this case because they all have lore. While creating these photos I encountered a few obstacles. First of all, while taking the first photo, it was a bit challenging to get my phone camera to focus well on something that close without using the less good ultra-wide camera that would have focused more easily but had worse image quality. The second photo might have been the easiest because it was shot in a perfectly lit white box with a good camera. The third photo was also shot with my phone, but that worked for this photo. The problem I encountered here was lining up the figures to make it look natural, which I don't think I ever did perfectly, even now. The photo still looks a bit off in my opinion.

The most interesting thing about these photos is the content in them. The first photo features a dart board with three darts hitting the bullseye. Even though the bullseye is not the best place to hit on a dart board, I thought people would understand the meaning more than if the darts were in the triple twenty spot which is the best place to hit. The second photo features a toy cat and a magic mouse which symbolizes a real mouse. The point of the photo is that cats and mice usually don't get along, but in this photo, they put their differences aside and became friends. The third photo features a chess board with one black king surrounded by white pieces. It looks like checkmate is now unavoidable due to the sheer difference in material, but I think this also represents hope. It might be very hard to not get mated, and even though it is impossible for the king to win alone, it is still possible to have a draw by stalemate and that is what the king hopes for which keeps him strong.

My design here is pretty basic and simple, but I think it gets the job done. I just have three photos with labels under them, and my name in the center. The three photos are lined up by their intensity with the mild cat photo in the middle and the intense ones on the edges. The photos are not the same aspect ratios but they don't look messy because the spaces between the photos and the spaces between the photos and edges are the same width.

success

unlikely

Illia S.

hope

Kristian N - Artist Statement The three pictures that I chose were from the beginning of the year and they are pictures that I really like. I chose them because I'm proud of what I was able to do in the beginning and I like how colorful and interesting they are. I also chose these pictures because they are the ones that I can talk about the most. They are abstract and that's what makes them even more interesting.

At the time, I was just starting out photography and I didn't necessarily think about the intentions that I had. I was mainly just focusing on something exciting and the color in the pictures was very interesting and that's why I took the pictures. For another one of the pictures, I was focusing on perspective and how to make the picture of a simple line, very beautiful. I achieved that using perspective and the background blur helped a lot.

The biggest thing that I had to look after was the perspective. It played a big part in the pictures. For example, the picture of the line had to be taken in a certain position for the background to stick out. For the picture of the art, I tilted the camera a bit so it made the wall and the design on it, seem confusing in a way. he first picture is of balls. It has a lot of different sports such as basketball or football. It has a lot of different colours and that's one reason why it makes the picture interesting. If you think about it deeper, you could see diversity and how all of them are similar no matter how different the sport is.

The second picture is more abstract and it is a picture of a painted wall. I think the mix of colours is beautiful and the angle that I took it from, makes it look even stranger and more confusing.

The third picture is an example of a very good angle. The main focus is on the line but the background is very clear as well and it gives it a very good look.

The common design focus I had for all of these is colour and how adding more details into the picture will make it more enjoyable to look at. I also focused a lot on perspective. As you can tell, all of these pictures are taken from an unusual perspective that makes them good pictures. Lastly, they are all pictures taken at our school.

Kristian N Confusion

Leading Sports

ARTIST STATEMENT - Noelle P. Photography is one area where I don't hold back and I explore to my heart’s content. I chose these pictures as they showcase the different styles of work I explored this whole year. This class helped me challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone which which in return helped me find myself.

For the first picture I wanted it to have a retro vibe as I am a big fan of old iconic movies and my deep interest in movies is reflected in this picture . ’Neutral’ is one picture where I felt that the fire was not only negative but also positive, the emotion expressed in this picture was neutral and hence the name. The pitch black background enhanced the color of the fire. For ‘Paradise’ I decided to make this picture have a light and joyous emotion as both KIS and my home feel like paradise to me. ‘"Unseen" was an interesting picture as, it is the picture of the projector in the movie hall and people don't see that side often which made me think how one side always remains unseen. I went to a movie and I turned backwards and saw this amazing light reflection of the projector and it was the one of he most beautiful things have ever seen. Adding the retro vibe was initially a coincidence but a good one.

‘Neutral’ is a photo which carries a neutral emotion. I always thought that fire was associated with something negative but the bonfire of clash of classes changed my whole view. I don't know whether I was influenced by by memories or just the picture itself. ‘paradise' was a picture i took when half of the school was empty and honestly sometimes it didn't feel whole. This picture signified home or sweet home whether it was full or not as, memories of a place remain in heart and mind even if the place doesn't. KIS and the time I spent there along with my classmates laughing, crying and dancing will always feel like a paradise. The fairies are the guiding mentors from whom I learn a lot.

Last but not the least a paradise can never be destroyed. Slava Ukraini

paradise neutral

Unseen

Noelle P.

Renat K - Artist Statement My works are similar in all ways. All of them represent the other’s word. The reason for that is the words – prosperity, life, and space represent nature. The reason for choosing these works was because of the love of life. Most of my work (not just this) are about nature. I chose to use nature as my main idea for the beauty and variety of it.

My intention was to give more the reader more fondness towards nature. Most people around the world do not appreciate what we have. We should value what we have, and nature is one of the major parts of humanity. Nature gives us life, gives us food, and beauty to look at everyday through the window. There is risk we could lose all of that, therefore, everyone should spread this liking towards nature to save it.

When it came to decision making, the work is not that complicated. The only decision making I made is how interpret the words I have in mind. The work is not very complicated as all three of my provided photos are mainly, beauty of nature. (You cannot mess up with nature). But there were a lot of obstacles that came when I was taking these photos. The first photo under the word prosperity was shot a total of three times. The first try the sky was grey, and I was unable to shoot during that day. The next day, it was raining. the third and last try to shoot the trees was, luckily, under a clear blue sky and I was successful. The second photo under the word Life did not provide me with any obstacles. The moss on the photo is placed in the wall of our apartment so it was easy to take a photo of something I see every day. The last photo under the word space has took more time and work than any other of my works. I was required to hike for seven hours, to get to the point from which I took the photo. I have said before that “the shot was not worth it” but looking back, I would hike again for a similar photo.

The first photo shows two fir trees that reach into the clear blue sky, they represent prosperity and nature, which could be considered prosperity itself. The second photo is shot at the proper angle to make the moss stretch to infinity as it takes all of the space in the photo. The photo contains has light green moss and dark green moss, this represents life and nature as you could observe the same picture while looking at a forest. The last photo was taken at a step of a mountain. You are able to see a little village surrounded by mountain that stretch to infinity.

The main principle of design I went for was color. All of the photos contain a certain shade of green. Green represents life and nature; therefore, my main idea was indeed nature. Something I was focusing on was the angle, all of the photos have a unique angle or place at which they were taken at.

Prosperity

Space Life

Renat K.

Anna Leshchii - Artist Statement The three works I have chosen are some of my recent ones, taken in Bucharest, Romania. While exploring the unfamiliar city with my camera, of course, I sought to understand the street life here. I wanted to see what Bucharest people's attitudes are towards life; more importantly how different are these attitudes. I was looking for representations of interesting concepts through the occurrences on the street.

The two photographs on the left ("Sunday. Neighbour gossip" and "Generations") are about exactly that. Whereas the photograph on the right ("Free") is, as you might have already assumed, about Ukraine. Being in Bucharest did not feel real at first. It still does not feel completely real. The first weeks abroad I kept asking myself "What am I doing here? Why am I not in Ukraine?" I see Ukraine everywhere. I miss my only home--the country that has made me who I am. The second I spotted that seagull flying over--so FAST and so FREE--just a moment before it would hide behind the roof of some French renaissance building. It made me think of Ukraine. It made me feel the power of my country's freedom once again. I could never capture that seagull. No one will ever capture Ukraine.

I do not remember how I took "Sunday. Neighbour gossip." It happened in an instant. Everything seemed perfectly in place and the story looked powerful despite being trivial at the same time. I have absolutely no idea if those people are neighbours and whether they are gossiping, but this is just a story I made up. People in the background are of less importance. What caught my attention is the three (neighbours?) bending over something in the middle. I feel like the back of that woman in white coat has an attitude itself.

But seriously, what is going on there?? The three seem in perfect harmony standing in the middle of a small square, even though dressed "on occasion," not at all in a hurry to get anywhere. Besides the bright spot of sunshine sets a daytime feeling, building juxtaposition with the beautiful evening gowns (associated with night time going out). I cropped the photograph and used the rule of thirds to place the group on the bottom left intersection. The sunshine placed itself without any of my help, flowing from the centre to the right third. The skirt pattern creates perfect harmony with the surrounding green, and brings together pattern and color.

"Generations" took a few more attempts. I saw the scene of the old man playing his violin, while suddenly out of nowhere, the guy on the bicycle appeared and began riding back and forth in front of the violinist. My camera was in autofocus and it was losing its gears trying to figure out where to lay the attention. However, I figured out in an instant how I want the shot to come out. I wanted the focus to be on the violinist, as the eyes naturally focused on the object that sat still.

The message I did not have to make up, it was there, I just had to capture it right. The juxtaposition is created here not only between the younger and the older men, but also between the older man and the ad posters (the image on the left, with the coffee pot), as those advertisements have a somewhat new-generation, "millennial" look to them. The interaction between the "two generations" is enhanced as both are dressed similarly; with the shades of their pants being dark, the shirts light, and the hair/hat black. I filtered this photograph to Black and White to accentuate this contrast between the generations, by bringing focus to the concept and eliminating any unnecessary color differences. There is more contrast between the black of the older man's pants and his whiteness of the shirt than that of the younger guy's. This draws attention to the violinist despite him sitting in the corner of the image. Only the left half of the photograph is "actively used," the right half creates certain negative space that is just enough to establish the setting and the mood of the street.

With "Free" I only had one shot. And it shows EXACTLY what I wanted. The photograph truly makes me feel what I felt when I saw the seagull. The sky was cloudy and uniform that day. That is why on high-contrast Black and White it looks completely white. That high contrast, in fact, between black elements and the white sky might also symbolise how clear Ukraine has come out to the world as the good fighting the evil, adding an extra layer to the message. I did not postprocess image in any other way. The crop came out like that initially. The seagull was THANKFULLY in focus! My free, independent, beautiful country, represented through a seagull in this photograph, is giving me slight goosebumps.

I will say it again: I could never capture that seagull. No one will ever capture Ukraine.

Anna Leshchii Free

Sunday.

Neighbour Gossip

Generations

Oskar U - Artist Statement All my photos have the clear blue sky in the background and are taken near my summer house that is not near the city. All the photos I took were right next to a farm or a forest. I love to take pictures of the forest because it brings peace to me and the photos most of the time. My intention was to show how much the sky affects the photos and how it can make it look super nice and relaxing. The sky was dark blue at the top and the color was fading the lower it goes.

It was not such a hard decision, my focus was on the sky. The sun was very bright, so I had to get an angle where the sun does not hit the camera and make everything much lighter than it was. And I tried to get photos where the blue was fading from top to bottom on all of them. And I tried to take the sky with nature not a hard thing but in half the photos the sky was so bright that you could not see the grass anymore and when I did get the photo I had to check if the sky was fading if not, I had to restart multiple time. For every photo, I wanted to go to a new place, so I had to ride a bike for 30minutes to place to get a place that looks good with the sky. The first photo took me 10minutes I was lucky because I got the bird and the sky at the same time. The second one took 20 tries half the time the sun was hitting the camera so had to keep reshooting. The third one took me 20 minutes because I wanted the clouds also to be in it because it looked very beautiful.

In the first photo you can see a bird flying in the sky from the tree next to a house and the tree at the bottom is aligned straight. The second photo was of a field and at the sides of the field there were trees that made a square and the trees all lined up to a cloud. The third photo is of an electricity tower that is between 2 forest and there are 3 clouds passing by it.

The main element of my photos is color, because all of the photos were focused on the color blue and how its fading away. Another strong element was was angle because of the sun it was hard to not have photos that were very bright.

essentiality

patulous

significance

Oskar U

O. Pabat - Artist Statement.

The presented works are examples of peak Pabat performance.

It's not much, but it's honest work.

The first photo indicates that nature's beauty is limitless. All you need to unlock its true powers is a camera. This was one of the first pictures that had me going, "huh , maybe photography is kinda cool". Further, it is a prime example that humans do indeed have the capacity to enrich nature with even more beauty, rather than destroying it. Overall its an interesting clash between nature and man made objects. The presence of so many active colours makes you want to go outside and touch some grass.

The second photo has some similarities with the first one. Yet again we see a clash between man made objects and nature. Though from a certain perspective it seems like a street with mud puddles. At the right angle the water becomes almost mystical. My knees never forgave me for that shot, but I am more than proud to have it in my collection. Essentially that photograph taught me that at the right angle anything could be admirable. I recall that I was somewhat surprised when I actually looked at that photo when I was submitting it. To a certain degree I couldn't believe it came out so well.

The third photo is an absolute show stopper, the visualization of peak Pabat performance. Those miniature cars were a major game changer in my photography since they provided me with a focus point that I could build around. I would have submitted more but I wanted some diversification within my works. This work alludes to that fact that art is indeed magical.

O. Pabat

Nature

Hidden Beauty

Magic

Anna K - Artist Statement The three photos I have chosen are some of my favorite work that I did in KIS. I chose these three photos, because I'm proud of how interesting and original they are. I also chose them, because I think that I can talk about these photos a lot.

Also, I have put a lot of effort into these photographs, and that is why I chose them.

It was my first year in aa photography class. I really liked this class, because it was, and still is fun. There are many interesting things to do. Because I really liked the class, I wanted to show that I can shoot good photos. These three pictures, are the pictures that I like the most. I feel like I have put a lot of my own personal creativity, and effort into them.

The main thing for me was creativity. I didn't want to have "normal" photos. I wanted to play a bit more than than the others. I think that when a photo makes you think about something, like how dark it is, or it makes you think of some story a narrative, it is a good picture.

For the first picture, I really like the little details. For the second picture, I really like the idea.

I tried to make the bokkah look like it's water. Which I think that I got pretty close to that. On that photo I also really like the black background.

Lastly, for the third picture, I like the idea. I like how it reflects. I like how the forks look. More specifically, I like how they are built. I think it makes it way more interesting to view.

book mirror bokkeh

Anna K

These three photos are pictures I took throughout the year of my house.

My house has very beautiful memories. I spent a pleasant and wonderful days there for five years. I can't forget these days easily.

The first picture on the right was in the summer. At the time, I was very surprised when I saw the rainbow. It's the clearest and most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen.

And the second picture was in the balcony of my room in the winter when it snows.

The last photo was in the spring. The appearance of our house was very strange with the clouds and plants around the house adding a beautiful feel.

I choose to write about my house because I missed it so much. I also like the colourful picture with the plants and clouds. The photo that has a powdery snow is one of my favourite pictures.

Shaikah A.

Home

Snow

Rainbow

ARTIST STATEMENT - Taisiya G. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Mine would be flying.

Being able to glide through the clouds and breathe in all that life has to offer.

The majority of pictures I take are from inside my room, outside my window. The feeling of being locked inside and not being able to live life properly makes me long for an escape.

Taking pictures of the birds soaring through the beautiful sunsets gives me that escape.

What would it be like, flying in the sky without a care in the world, feeling free?

For this project, I knew I wanted to use one of my many hundreds of sunset photos. I searched for hours trying to find the perfect ones to fit together; naming the photos took double the time.

Both photos were taken from the same exact spot, yet both have such a different feel, a different story, a different moment.

To me, ‘diabolic anguish’ and ‘celestial relief’ symbolize the concept of ‘evil vs. good’.

On particularly beautiful sunsets, like these, I usually take up to 300 photos. But the ratio of me liking them is around 5/300. When picking out photos I go by pure intuition, “which photo feels right?” ‘Celestial relief’ is one of those photos that felt very right. And since I decided to go with my theme of good and bad, I picked out a partner that completely contradicted the other.

I think that the pictures clash so perfectly together, our fear and doubt fighting with our hope and our belief.

The bird aspect of the photos was easy to capture. My shutter speed is always set up high and there are so many birds. It's almost impossible to not capture them in the photos.

So, as I sit here, on my windowsill, I have a small insight into how flying really feels.

diabolic anguish

Taisiya G.

celestial relief

Marcel F. - Artist Statement These three pictures present a timeline, a timeline 40 million people on this planet are used to.

Have experienced.

You first have the blood in the sink, The sacrifices brave people have made to ensure our safety.

The second picture shows a cat, cats are known to be very alert to their surroundings. Looking around making sure everything is safe before they make the next move. This represents how people look out the window seeing what's happening, being alert to their surroundings before going outside.

Finally, the only picture taken outside.

The sacrifices that the brave Ukrainian army and Ukrainian civilians have made, that allow others to continue on with their life.

Instead of rockets over our heads we can now enjoy the beauty of Kyiv with a blue sky over our heads.

This series instills hope and pride.

Hope for a better future, when a peaceful sky over our heads doesn't require such sacrifice and bloodshed.

Pride in our people and the achievements that Ukraine has made over the last 3 months.

As these pictures are waiting for a time were no connection can be made between them.

Marcel Farhat

Sacrifice

Alert

Relief