“This is the third time I visit the traditional Den exhibit. Every year photos more and more enchant me. I watch the pictures over and over again. I wish I hadn’t seen photos about war, but we can’t shut our eyes to this terrible situation. Thank you very much for so hearty pictures. They make me think. I’m looking forward to the next exhibit,” Olhopil eight-grade pupil Sofia Kolisnychenko wrote in the Den exhibit’s visitor book.
Incidentally, this year’s tour of our exhibit has broken all records – for the first time in 18 years, we exhibited the Den competition’s best pictures in 11 areas. The last stopovers of this tour were the urban-type community of Chechelnyk and the village of Olhopil in Vinnytsia oblast. This is the sixth time we visited this region at the invitation of Den’s old friend Pavlo Kalenych, manager of the Olhopil agrarian company and member of the Vinnytsia Oblast Council.
Almost a thousand of people saw the 18th Den International Photo Exhibit in Chechelnyk and Olhopil. The Audiences Prize went to Strength and Tenderness by Oleksii Lebid, Mother’s Joy by Oleh Nych who lives in Chechelnyk, and The Heart of the Carpathians by Yevhen Malolietka.
“What impressed me most of all are Oleksii Furman’s war-related pictures of the ‘Overcoming’ series which show wounded soldiers. These photos seem to be reproaching us for what we failed to do,” Nych says. “Since the Maidan, we’ve been expecting changes for the better both on photographs and in the state.”
Oleh recently posted a touching picture in Facebook that shows a kissing elderly couple. The photographer promised to send it to the new Den competition. “I was photographing a wedding party, and these people came, saw me, and began to pose. The old man kissed the old woman so tenderly… The photo drew a lot of positive responses,” Nych says. “In general, there’ve been so many interesting subjects this year – for example, unveiling the Taras Shevchenko monument in Olhopil. A photo from the same place shows Shevchenko Prize winner Natalia Polovynka who came to her native Olhopil to attend this event and ‘sing to Shevchenko’ a song to his lyrics. It becomes especially interesting if you look at the photograph, knowing the context. Den accepts the pictures that express a certain idea. So, I’d like to select this kind of pictures for the photo competition.”
The level of audiences was a pleasant surprise to Nych. “There is always a demand for such events as the Den exhibit in Olhopil. Pavlo Kalenych can help organize exhibits and understands the importance of these things. This is why he deals with this,” the photographer continues. “A lot of people came to the exhibit. Some were asking about subjects and techniques. The people’s demands, particularly of esthetic nature, are changing. They begin to understand more.”
The Chechelnyk-based photographer said that some exhibit visitors also wanted to take part in our photo competition and were asking him about how they could do so. For your information, everybody still has a chance to participate because the submission deadline for Den’s 19th International Photo Competition is September 30. To take part, you should take three simple steps: pay 50 hryvnias as a contribution to organizational expenses, fill out the online resume, and add to it the photo and the contribution cash memo. For details and the participation form, please consult our website.
See you at the 19th Den International Photo Exhibit!
