Adam Hinton: When I think about Ukraine...
Adam Hinton: When I think about Ukraine...
Adam Hinton
March 9, 2022
“When I think about Ukraine, this picture comes to mind. It shows Irina Slakar preparing her veil on her wedding day. She is marrying Demitri, a former miner in Donetsk, Ukraine. It was taken in August 1993. I was working on a long-term project about the changes going on in Donetsk post USSR. I first visited Donetsk in December 1991 three weeks before the day the USSR collapsed. I originally went to photograph the coal miners of the region.
I stayed with a coal mining family, the Slakars: Victor and Katiya with Katiya’s children from her first marriage, Irina and Sergey. The family were very welcoming and it was great to stay with them. We struck up a close friendship and they invited me back over the next four years. I returned to record some of their big family events, like the marriage of Irina to Demitri. This is one of my favourite images as it seems to capture a quiet moment of reflection as Irina tries on her veil. All the hopes she has for the future; the hope that life will be good to them. I unfortunately lost contact with them when my English-speaking contact retired and moved away from Donetsk. I know that Victor and Katiya moved down to the Black Sea to retire, whilst Irina and Sergey remained in Donetsk. I tried to get in contact with them back in 2015 but it wasn’t possible. I can only hope they are safe and well, somewhere away from the conflict.”
Text: Adam Hinton; Image: © Adam Hinton/Panos
I stayed with a coal mining family, the Slakars: Victor and Katiya with Katiya’s children from her first marriage, Irina and Sergey. The family were very welcoming and it was great to stay with them. We struck up a close friendship and they invited me back over the next four years. I returned to record some of their big family events, like the marriage of Irina to Demitri. This is one of my favourite images as it seems to capture a quiet moment of reflection as Irina tries on her veil. All the hopes she has for the future; the hope that life will be good to them. I unfortunately lost contact with them when my English-speaking contact retired and moved away from Donetsk. I know that Victor and Katiya moved down to the Black Sea to retire, whilst Irina and Sergey remained in Donetsk. I tried to get in contact with them back in 2015 but it wasn’t possible. I can only hope they are safe and well, somewhere away from the conflict.”
Text: Adam Hinton; Image: © Adam Hinton/Panos
Adam Hinton+-
When Hinton was 15 years old, he bought camera equipment with the first instalment of a government compensation plan following a knife attack (the attacker had something against punks). From that point on, his focus was photography. He studied Photojournalism at Richmond-upon-Thames College in London, and at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham. Hinton is represented by the Panos agency. More