Three photos from Ukraine entered The Guardian’s list of 20 best photographs of 2022
The Guardian сhose its version of the 20 best photos of the year 2022 and told their stories. Three photos from Ukraine entered the list.
One of the photos depicts an emotional goodbye at a train station in the Ukrainian city of Odesa caught by Salwan Georges for The Washington Post/Getty Images.
“There was a man saying an emotional goodbye to a woman who had boarded. I put down my camera. This could be their last goodbye: it’s not my place to interrupt it. But the man gave me a nod, so I started to photograph. I found myself weeping behind the camera,” Salwan Georges told The Guardian.
Another picture was taken by Ukrainian defender Dmytro Kozatsky at Azovstal, a steel plant in Mariupol. In the plant’s tunnels, furnaces and warehouses, soldiers – and hundreds of civilians – sheltered together. On May 17, 2022, Ukrainian defenders were eventually forced to surrender as the plant was surrounded. Before they did so, Dmytro Kozatsky published his photos from the plant. He returned home in September 2022, after spending four months in Russian captivity.
The third picture was taken by Sergey Bobok for AFP in Kharkiv. It depicts volunteers Anastasia and Anton who both work in healthcare.
“This photo is about love – our desire to be close in times of danger. I saw it again and again in Kharkiv… But this is also a photograph about the perseverance and invincibility of Kharkiv residents, despite death, destruction and huge losses,” the photographer said.
