Girl with the black eyes

Happy birthday, dear Theresa! You have such a beautiful soul, and stunning eyes.
It was a great pleasure for me  to travel to Schwerin on a weekend last time I was in Germany.
Photographing Theresa was a little dream of mine and I'm very happy that it came true.

Thoughts on Germany

I had been working on a meaningful story about my impression of Germany for two days, when I realized that my writing skills are yet too poor to write something thoughtful about other countries. So I erased almost everything.

Berlin

When I was in Germany, I felt like everything was in its place, in order, fixed and working. There are so many resources for social initiatives, kids are always involved, a lot of attention is paid to history and education, people care about energy-saving and recycling. For now I don't have this feeling in Ukraine, but I believe it's a reachable goal.

Letter from the past

I took some notes after my crazy Kyiv-Lutsk-Warsaw-Berlin-Vienna trip, which I did in 5-6 days exactly a year ago. They were lost and accidentally found today (I can sense a metaphor). These are just random thoughts I would like to share with you...
"When you happen to be in Warsaw, Berlin and Vienna on the same day you start losing your timeframe. It's weird that nothing felt like a new place to me... 
Everything was familiar, even though there was nothing of 'mine' around (not sure concept exists at all). I felt like an invisible man, a total stranger, an observer, that can be in different places at the same time unnoticed by others.
I felt more of a journalist than of a traveler. In the course of last two days I've heard more of negative than positive things about the city. That is why I had quite critical attitude to it."

Vienna encounter

What amazes me the most about traveling is the wonder of unexpected encounters.
After my wonderful trip to Germany (more about it later) with stops in Vienna

I didn't expect to meet someone very special in the last hour of my stay in Austrian capital.
I was already exhausted after the early travel from Berlin to Vienna and several meetings when I met Hoa. She found the message on Couchsurfing about my desire to do a photo walk, was kind enough to respond late at night to my emails and meet  the complete stranger the next day.
You just send a message to the void of Internet, and somehow wonderful people catch them and then meet you. I still can't believe that it works. I wasn't sure how Hoa would look like, but when I stepped out of U-Bahn 15 minutes later than planned, I saw a girl taking a picture of a homeless man, pointing a camera straight into his face,neither being nervous nor shy. I thought: "That's a good start".

I didn't expect that one hour with a stranger would be too little. And when I was literally jumping onto my train to the airport, it felt like tearing apart with a sister you've never met before. She told me: "The pictures I made of you do not look good. You have to come back, so I'll make the better ones." And I definitely will, Hoa.

 Here you can find Hoa's project about strangers on Facebook "Pieces of Life", and her YouTube channel with cool stories.

Що мене найбільше вражає у подорожах, так це невичерпна присутність неочікуваних зустрічей.
Після чудової поїздки до Німеччини (про яку згодом) із зупинками у Відні, я не очікувала зустріти когось особливого у мою останню годину перебування в австрійській столиці.
Я вже була виснажена раннім перельотом з Берліну до Відня, прогулянки і декількох зустрічей, коли я зустріла Хоа. Вона побачила моє повідомлення на Couchsurfing про те, що я шукаю партнера для фотопрогулянки, мило відповідала на мої пізні імейли, і погодилась зустрітись зі мною наступного дня. Ти просто надсилаєш повідомлення у порожнечу інтернету,
і якимось чином чудові люди ловлять їх, і знаходять тебе. Я досі не розумію, як це працює.
I не знала точно, як Хоа виглядатиме, але коли я вийшла з метро, на 15 хвилин пізніше, ніж планувалося, я побачила дівчину, яка фотографувала безпритульного чоловіка, тримаючи камеру прямо перед його обличчям, не нервуючи ы не соромлячись. Я подумала: "Це гарний початок".Я не очікувала, що одна година із незнайомцем буде так замало. І коли я буквально застрибувала у потяг до аеропорту, було таке відчуття, що я відриваюсь від сестри, яку ніколи не бачила. Вона сказала мені: "Твої фотографії, які я зробила, не дуже вдало вийшли. Тобі доведеться  приїхати знову, аби я зробила кращі.» Я повернусь, Хоа.

Kyiv nowadays

I made a photo walk on April 6th, the first one in a long while, especially a street-like.

That's how the center of Kyiv looks right now. On Sundays a lot of peoplee gather on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independance Square), a place where a lot of rallies and battles took place.

People come to honor the fallen, to see the barricades, to lay flowers, to listen to speakers and to sing Ukrainian anthem. It has completely different atmosphere, everyone is friendly and always ready to jump into a coverastion with stranger. It's truly the heart of Ukraine.

L'viv streetwalking

I was lucky to travel a lot this summer and L'viv was one of my summer go-by-yourself destinations. While being on a little vocation once again , I want to take you for a little walk around this amazing  warm old city, which is fair to say is the most beautiful in Ukraine. Kyiv and L'viv are so different from other parts of the country, and as for me, it's great that you can change the atmosphere and feel like in another country for several days not actually leaving the one you live in. Dedicated to all the amazing people who connect me with L'viv.

(warning: lots of pictures below)

True love + blog anniversary

Today I want to show you one of the most beautiful things I am very proud of - Ilona & Yura engagement photoshoot. And I can't even take credits for me because together they are so incredibly beautiful and talented , they planned everything carefully - from hair to poses and colors - that I didn't even have to do anything. It is so easy to see the light pouring out from their hearts into something between them that gives you the chills.
Today is a special day for this blog - actually tomorrow but whatever - it turns 3 years old.
And it makes me kind of sad because many blogs that I read in 3 year gained more than 1000 followers,
and here I hardly feel someone is reading what I write here. So please, let me know what kind of content you prefer to see here and it will make me less sad :) And also I wanted to ask other bloggers awkward question - what do you guys do, to gain more readers?
Enjoy!

The whole world in letters

I am so excited about launching my personal mailbox!

I've been crazy about  buying and sending postcards to my friends abroad recently, as well as receiving them. From now you can send me a letter, a postcard, a little something from any country, and if you add your adress - I'll write you back! Also, I'll infrom you about getting your postcard - through Instagram or Flickr.

Thank you all for supporting Rennes.I photography and
carrying about what I do.

What do you know about Estonia?

The only thing personally I knew before going to this country were some jokes about their slow way of talking and thinking, which is completely wrong, and that's actually it. Nevertheless, I was pretty excited to travel somewhere not too popular but still Europe :) I'll tell more about the country (with pictures, of course) in the next post.

If it doesn't challange you, it won't change you.

This year academic year went so weirdly quicky and hard yet very interesting and instructively. I've learned so much about myself and people around me, and experienced God's will and
guardianship through the whole freshman experience. Now I'm feeling much more confident about myself and ready to work productevly on photography and self-education (I'm kind of nerd, I've already got so many books and journals for self-educating, and found websites with online courses, e.g. coursera).
I've been thinking a lot about what should I do this summer and in autumn and what to prepare myself for  next summer (I'm very 'foreseeing' kind of person), and sometimes I am faced with a choice whether I am doing something for myself or should I do this for God. Have a courage to challenge yourself, your faith, your foundations and I think it'll pay back. God is faithfull, so how much we must be faithful to Him. I wish you to feel proud of yourself after this summer, to be productive and inspired. May god bless you wherever you are :)

In the woods

Finally, the summer season has started for me. I passed my last final (latina!) and in 2 days was driving back to my lovely home in train. It feels weird to get back to bloggin after such a long pause, it's like not knowing what to talk about with a friend you haven't seen for years. Anyway, I'm taknful to you for reading this and carring about what I do. In 6 days I leave abroad (going to tell you later, when I actually will have departured), but before that, I'll definitely will post here at least twice. That's why I'll tell about myself more later. Now just enjoy beautiful Julia and our shoot that we did in botanical garden, but mostly in the 'woods' part of it.She is such a joyful person and I think this is the first time backstage pictures are worth publishing in a separate post :)

I took a walk

Just what I see.

Sum-ups and cheers to a New Year

This year was extremely long, even if it sounds weird, but that’s true. I’ve been througt so many changes: at the beginning of the year I was still studying at school, then I graduated, then the summer started and I tried to apply to the universities and went to live for some time to Kyiv on my own, then I was preparing a summer camp which was great and amazing, then it was Fall and I moved to Kyiv to study there, and finally I’m back home.

I kind of don’t want to tell in details how hard or easy was my living in Kyiv because cognition comes through comparison and for some it may seem quite normal for others something unbearable. For me it was pretty tough but I’ve learned so much though this experience and I definitely became mature and stronger, that’s why I thank God for all kinds of experiences I had. Unfortunately my photography suffered because I wasn’t practicing it as much as I used to and it definitely upsets me, but I also understand that for this period of my life those spiritual and physical challenges are on a priority basis for me, without them I will not be able to take up work responsibilities or go abroad and deal with language and cultural barrier and stuff like that.

But when I looked through my pictures taken during 2012 I realised how great it was, how different and how interesting. I've met so many great people, we had an amazing time  together with my parents, friends and church. I've improved my photography through 365 project and my pictures were published as a book cover and music album cover. I think it was incredibly incredibly blessed year!!! That's the reason I love photography: you can always come back to some moments and they will uplift you or make you realise and revise something.

Thank you for reading this post and following my progress even if it is not really noticeable. Still, I feel I’m on the right way to my goal, quite thorny, but right. Have a great, challenging but SURELY successful 2013 year, may God bless and support you throughout the entire journey of your life!

p.s. here are some picture that were taken on my last days at Kyiv before going back home on the christmas fair. the holiday atmosphere was everywhere!

7 on 7 July

Street workout competition.
I was asked to be a photo journalist there, it was really great experience.
 In 6 hours I'm heading off to Kyiv for my entrance campaign for a few days.
Gonna keep you updated on Twitter :) Have a great weekend,
and don't forget to check out our 7 on 7 circle and Andrew's stream.

Lena studio photoshot + behind the scenes

Lena is not only beautiful girl ,but also a beautiful soul. I was looking forward to this shot and was incredibly happy when we finally did. Huge thanx to my good friend Juriy Derkach for shooting the behind the scenes video. It was so fun :)