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Review of work by freelance photographer Oksana Yushko

Freelance photographer, works as photojournalist since 2006, lives in New York. Has higher education in computer science and applied mathematics. Graduated from “Izvestia” school of journalism in 2005, took part in a Noor-Nikon workshop in Romania in 2011, and participated in various workshops and master-classes of Objective Reality Foundation in 2008-2011.

The participant of many group exhibitions in different American cities, as well as in the USA and Great Britain.

Finalist of the Conscientious Portfolio Competition in 2010 and The Aftermath project with the collective work “Grozny: Nine Cities” in 2010 and others.

Oksana works with American and foreign editions, has been published in American Reporter, Expert, Ogonyok, The New York Times, Guardian, Stern, Mare, Le Point, La Vanguardia, Helsingin Sanomat, Rear View Mirror and other magazines.

Currently continues to work on personal and group projects in America and abroad.

Candy seller

Seller of sweets and drinks offers his wares to holidaymakers on the Azov Sea.

From the “Toilers of the Sea” project, 2009

– No, you don’t understand that this teapot is actually no better than this teapot!

We’re in Oxana’s kitchen, eating dumplings with potatoes and mushrooms. There are two teapots on the table and we are talking about the competitions, in which the photographers are awarded the title of “this year’s best”. I say that if a “dummy” is lucky: he happened to be in the right place at the right time and got a rare shot, even if he’s talented, it doesn’t make him any better than another “dummy” who wasn’t in the right place at the right time, but is talented too. Oksana says that in fact right those who give an award first “teapot” – he deserved it. No one rewards it just for the time and place, because talent is also a prerequisite. But if a “teapot” is really talented, I reply, he might take pictures of a felted tree somewhere in the American countryside and make a masterpiece out of it. And when an award is only given to those “teapots” who go to Libya, Afghanistan, and so on, then… Anyway, I’m sick of seeing murder and cut-off noses in the photos that are recognized as best this year. “I want the teabaggers to take off the valenki!” – I summed it up. Oksana says I’m right, too. In her own way, she added. And that is all Oksana, with whom I am friends for several years now. A photographer who is never opinionated in words, but always mildly categorical in all his photos.

Oksana Yushko
Marina Akhmedova

Oksana Yushko and Marina Akhmedova

Sometimes I really want to argue with Oksana. I go to a meeting with her in a Japanese restaurant, where we meet every week, and muttered to myself the inner monologue that she is about to give out. She lives by the principle “smile at the world and the world will smile at you.”. And when I pounce with my dislike on people who don’t smile at me and I often see such people on our trips , Oksana always presses her lips together. I can feel her silently judging me. And at such moments, I want to pounce on it too. At times like this, it’s not the others that make me angry, it’s my friend – not for judging me, but for doing it in silence. She carries everything within her and thinks that her smile will bring peace to the whole world..

Two years ago we went to Artek together. At midnight we went for a swim to the sea, we wandered for a long time along the narrow paths of pine groves in complete darkness, we got lost. And suddenly… And suddenly, among the pines came a terrible cry that could not belong to beast or man. We froze.

– I think I can go no further,” I said in a faint voice, and made an effort not to run.

– Me, too,” she said. – But we’ll go around the place.

“And we went around the place. Ten minutes later we arrive at the seashore. It, choppy, tossed out of its high waves.

– Oksana…” I said in a weak voice, “I don’t think I want to go swimming.

– “Then you wait for me here,” she said.

Undressed and swam. I sat on a boulder and sat staring at the sea in the darkness under the stars. Behind me stood a century-old pine trees, in which I always imagined a creeping creature, issuing a terrible shriek. In front of me rose huge black waves, in which somewhere floated Oksana. It seemed to me that now out of the sea will grow a giant water arm and pull me away. Or a creature comes running out of the grove. I was almost crying with fear and winding up with my inner monologue. Time dragged on, Oksana never came up, and I wondered what I would do if she drowned. I ran for help? I’ll get lost in the pines. Swim for it? I can’t swim.

“I’ll call Vasya in New York,” I decided, and then Oksana came up, as if nothing had happened, calmly emerged from the waves.

I wanted to tell her everything, but she was smiling so happily that I decided not to spoil her mood. I wanted to give her everything the next day, but she was bitten on the leg by a dog, which I generously fed with sausages, and I, having thanked the dog, calmed down, but my inner monologue got longer.

I never got particularly deep into her photos. Just knew that Oksana is a good photographer, who always receives awards in some competitions. I never pry into her soul, I got used to her hiding her emotions from others, and she must have got used to me dumping mine on others. That’s how we were friends. I liked that when I took an interview I did not feel her presence: she was doing her job, but she did not distract the hero from the conversation and did not break the atmosphere of trust, if there was one, between me and the hero. Many of our reports together were signed.

Two years ago we went to Grozny together. For Oksana, it was her first trip to Chechnya, and she was wary of people in camouflage uniforms and with machine guns. I took an interview, she took photos. We went to the village to attend a wedding and a funeral. Oksana photographed zikr. Then we went to Kadyrov’s press secretary together and asked for an interview with the president of the republic. I was told to make a list of questions that I was going to ask. I spent a long time looking at a piece of paper. If I’d written the questions I was really going to ask, they wouldn’t have let me see Kadyrov. And the questions that would be suitable for an interview did not occur to me.

– Oksana, I can’t…” I moaned, and she came up with a dozen questions about education, construction, economics, and youth policy in no time. I gave the list to the press secretary, and they took us to Kadyrov’s office for fifteen minutes. I asked questions not on the list, Oksana photographed Kadyrov’s emotions. Fifteen minutes had lengthened to an hour.

– Come see me for a minute! – the press secretary said sternly when the interview was over, and we staggered back to his office.

The minute dragged on. I was silent, and Oksana would make a sorry face and regret out loud. Probably only thanks to this press secretary believed in the sincerity of my remorse.

– “They’ll take you away now,” he finally said after an hour and a half.

– Where?? – meekly asked Oksana, and since then I tell that story constantly, and I say that in that moment she looked and sounded like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

I also like to tell about Oksana and the mantis. One day he was sitting on the balcony of our hotel room. He was discovered by Oksana, but by the time I got there, he had already jumped. And Oksana showed me the pose in which he was sitting. In the evening we were walking along the promenade, and she, stopped in the middle of the passers-by, again showed a mantis. And I laughed and said to myself: “It’s strange, she’s afraid of words, but not afraid of gestures.”. I certainly could never show a mantis in public..

Oksana brings her own stories from her business trips. The most recent is about how she was collecting garbage in the mountains, just saw it lying around, collected it in a bag, brought it down the mountain and could not find the trash can. On her way to him with a sack on her shoulder, she met different people and asked each of them if they had seen a trash can? The story lasted a long time, at each turn of Oksana’s descent acquired new details, excruciating for the listener. Every Oksana story takes a long time to get to the end. Oksana easily talks about who she met, where she was, what she did and how she did it, but she is always silent about how she felt.

We traveled together, we ate lunch together. But I never believed in her photographic talent. I thought she was diligent and hardworking, which are the main qualities of a photographer. I thought she was the first “teapot” who was in the right place at the right time. She hasn’t read my texts either. It happens this way: we rarely believe in people close to us, we always think that masterpieces are created by some special people – so special that they cannot be in our environment. And certainly these special people are not going to pretend to be a praying mantis on the embankment, or talk boringly about how they collected trash. And will not run to a meeting with bulging eyes and blurted out instead of a greeting: “You know, Oksana, so-and-so and so – a fool! Confirm it immediately!”.

But one day Oksana asked me: “Help me write a text for my photos about the fishing village”. It was night, I was working on my book, and the text I got from her in chat was totally out of place.

– Okay, send me your pictures, – I said, glad that in a chat emotion is not visible.

Oksana sent the night sea, the weathered faces, the boats going off into the night across the beam path, the tired faces of the fishermen. I stared and stared at those pictures until the message came:

– Well, you’ll write?

I began to write. Every minute a proposal flew from my home to Oksana’s, on the other side of New York. I had never been to that fishing village, never smelled the fishing nets, never seen off the boats while standing on the shore. But looking at them going into the sea in the picture, I realized how desperately my friend wanted to go with them, but she stayed on shore – to shoot.

I sent my emotions, counted from the photos, – more and more, and she was silent, and I thought that I misunderstood and she didn’t agree with me, that she didn’t like the words I wrote.

– How do you know how I felt then?? – she finally asked.

– I know you, so I know how you feel,” I answered.

Yes, I lied to her. But I could not tell her that I still do not really believe in her feelings, I thought she did not lock them, just strong emotions in it. And it turns out you do. And I out of spite did not tell Oksana that in the text about the fishermen I conveyed my feelings, but our feelings were the same.

– I so wanted to go with them,” she wrote.

And then the text had to be shortened – exactly by half. The editorial team asked for 700 characters, but the result is 1,500 words of emotion. Yes, there’s always more emotion than can fit in seven hundred characters..

– Well, of course, I do not consider you the first “teapot” – I sparingly praised, waved a dumpling on a fork. – You’re certainly the second “dummy,” you’ve got talent.

Oksana again made a face as if she wanted to say: “I can’t agree with you, but I can’t refute you either”. And we talked about something else. We have many stories in common: about the fountain, about the mullet and the dog, about the meat lasagna, about Alik the cat, about the sun… There are two stories about the sun. The first one should be shown, but the second one… In Tsakhkadzor, Armenia, we went to church. We bought candles. We lighted them and began to stick them into the sand.

– Let’s make a circle out of candles, – suggested Oksana.

– What’s that? – I got suspicious.

– The sun,” she answered. – So that there would be peace in the world.

We made a circle and watched the candles burn for a long time. I looked at Oksana’s serious face and suppressed a chuckle.

– Let’s take a picture,” I said.

Oksana took off the candles and we went on watching. Candles burned halfway down, leaned toward each other, and the flames twitched in all directions. The candles looked like warriors fighting.

– There’ll be no peace in the world, Oksana,” I said.

– They’re dancing,” she answered.

Jerky vendors

Solders of dried fish on the Sea of Azov.

From The Troublemakers of the Sea Project, 2009

In anticipation

Waiting to be photographed with a crocodile and a boa constrictor. Sea of Azov.

From the project “Toilers of the Sea”, 2009

In an abandoned village

In an abandoned village.

From “Kenozero Dreams” project, 2007

Roads to Kenozero

In the fall and spring the roads in Kenozero become almost impassable for cars.

Locals no longer have any hope of fixing this other than to wait for the weather to improve.

From “Kenozero Dreams” project, 2009

Vodka

Vodka is still the cheapest and most common stress reliever. Statistics show that about a quarter of Americans drink alcohol to forget about everyday problems.

From “Kenozero Dreams” project, 2009

Old Woman

An old woman is resting in her house in one of the half-abandoned villages of Kenozero and wishes that her grandchildren would visit her more often. Most young people leave for nearby cities in search of work right after high school graduation.

From the Kenozero Dreams project, 2009

Footballer

An amputee footballer who lost his leg during a mine war in Chechnya.

From “Grozny: Nine Cities” project, 2010

Women at funerals

Women at a funeral, Grozny, Chechnya.

From the project “Grozny: nine cities, 201

Chechen Wedding

Chechen wedding. From the project “Grozny: Nine Cities”, 2009

The men are dancing

Men dancing zikr at a funeral in the outskirts of Grozny, Chechnya.

From “Grozny: nine cities” project, 2009

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Comments: 2
  1. Skylar

    Wonderful review of Oksana Yushko’s work as a freelance photographer! Can anyone recommend specific projects she has worked on that showcase her unique style and perspective? I would love to explore more of her portfolio!

    Reply
  2. Daniel Johnston

    Can you provide more information about Oksana Yushko’s work as a freelance photographer? What type of photography does she specialize in? Has she been published in any notable publications or exhibited her work? How can I view her portfolio or contact her for potential collaboration?

    Reply
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