“When Our Paths Cross” is the fourth installment of my work on Ukraine, which I began in 2023. With this series, I wanted to create a project based on encounters—encounters with people and places during my travels in Ukraine, which started in 2024. I wanted to leave room for randomness, for the unpredictable, for the purity of meeting someone by chance.
As I wandered through the country, I walked its streets and paths without any specific goal, other than the possibility of a meaningful encounter—crossing paths with someone who would evoke an emotion, a desire to capture their portrait. Letting the magic of the encounter unfold.
It is also about finding places that inspire me, that speak to my subconscious, that tell the story I want to narrate. Then, all that remains is to cross paths with the characters my story has imagined —those my subjectivity wishes to introduce to you. Using chance as a means of storytelling.
My intention is to share my perspective on Ukrainian society, to photograph my fragments of reality. To invite the viewer to reflect, to consider what it means to be a soldier, to be 16 years old in Donbas, to be 5 in Kharkiv, to be a woman alone or a mother in a daily life consumed by war. To speak of the daily lives of those whose existence has been forever changed, of those who fight to defend and preserve their identity and culture—an identity that Russia refuses to acknowledge and seeks to erase.
What hopes remain? What expectations? Can one recover from such a conflict? What does it mean to be Ukrainian today? These are just some of the many questions that crossed my mind as I took these photographs.
“When Our Paths Cross” paints a portrait—my portrait—of a Ukraine exhausted after three years of war, of the daily lives of the children, women, and men whose existences have been upended by a conflict they did not choose, who fight for their survival and the preservation of their identity.
once again i was driving in donbas. and i saw this pretty girl, dressed like she was a doll, like war didn’t existed. i asked her if she would agree to make a portrait.
she said yes, she was really happy because it turned out that it was the day of her 16th birthday. i cannot imagine what it is to be 16 in Donbas today… and yet she was celebrating. resilience is strong.
I met Anastasia Yevhenii and the dog Paranoia when I was photographing this destroyed bridge in the Donbas. Another chance encounter.
Anastasia and Yevhenii are both military personnel. Yevhenii had been taken prisoner and was returning from Russian prisons following a prisoner exchange.
they both want to keep fighting for their homeland.
I saw these two kids, brother and sister, playing in the street of Irpin. I immediately wanted to photograph them illustrating what it is to be a kid daily living the war for 3 years now. We can’t realize the trauma these kids will have to deal with in the future. The youth of Ukraine is probably doomed to ptst for years.
I met Sasha in Borodyanka while i was working on my other Ukrainian project on buildings destroyed by war.
Sasha is a former military. he got injured. since he came back from war he is homeless and lives in the building you can see behind him, a destroyed place with no water nor electricity… he reminded me of these GIs coming back from vietnam and left aside.
Oleksander is a military in Donbas. He is watching and taking care of a temporary bridge that is crucial for army logistics. he poses on a destroyed bridge in front of another destroyed bridge.
I saw Volodymyr on his bike while i was driving. I immediately liked his face and his hands, the hands of a craftman. he was riding his bike probably coming back from work. i asked him if he would be ok to make a portrait. he agreed.
i like this moment when, even if it is not easy to communicate as i don’t speak ukrainian yet and Volodymyr doesn’t speak english, a moment of complicity takes place.
Once again i started a photograph from a place that inspired me.
then i waited, and waited… i came back for 3 days waiting for someone i imagined in this place. and after 3 days wait Bohdan showed up with friends. he was shy when i asked him to pose for me, but he agreed, his friend Petro was more relaxed
I saw Varvara while i was randomly driving. she was going back home on her bike, it was a sunday. i asked her family and she if she would be ok to make a photograph, she first said no but changed her mind a few minutes later and came back to me.
once again i wanted to express what it is to be a young kid growing up in a country at war.
I wanted to photograph someone in the subway. Subway is a place where you travel to get to work, to get home or to go see friends.
but in Ukraine subway is also a place where you can take shelter from the bombings.
i saw Karolina coming out from the train and asked her if i could make a portrait. she agreed in a perfect english.
August 2024. The city of Pokrovs’k, most of the civilians have left following the requests of the Ukrainian authorities for security reasons, the city being regularly bombed by the Russians and soon under siege.
Despite the curfew I met Vladislav in the street and asked him to take his portrait.
Vladislav had just lost his mother a few days ago, his only family, nothing kept him in Pokrovs’k but he had nowhere to really go.
I met Mariya one August morning in the city of Kramatorsk in the Donbas. She lives alone in Kramatorsk, her husband is away at the front but she is happy because she was a victim of domestic violence.
When i saw this place it imediately made me think of an american scenery. i imediately imagined taking a picture of someone with a child at this place.
so i waited… until Anastasia and her daughter came a few hours later.
i wanted people to think about what it is to be a mother, to be a child in a city like Kharkiv where you get multiple bombings and alerts everyday.
Oleksandr is a military. I met him the day before he was leaving to join is batallion in Donbas. He is proud to fight for his country and also very proud to be part of Azov batallion.
Shahin Omarov is honorary consul of the republic of albania in kharkiv. March 6th 2022 the city of Tirana in Albania announced the new address of the russian ambassy street would be Rruga Ukraina e Lirë (Free Ukraine Street) following Moscow’s invasion. The Russian will have to work, live and get their mail at a Free Ukraine street address, Moscow didn’t appreciate the humor and decided a strike on the consulate on march 7th totaly destroying it. The next day it was the private house of the honorary consul that was hit. i photographed him on the remains of the consulate.
