An ingenuous planet

The Vernadsky Library hosted the photo exhibit of the Second International Women Photo Competition “Children’s Planet.” This is the only competition whose participants are exclusively women and children are the subject of their creative work.

“Children’s Planet” is the result of two years of active work by the Kyiv department of the National Ukrainian Photographers Union and the international photographers’ organization Images sans Frontieres. The results were simply amazing: in two years the number of countries participating in the contest has grown from four to seventeen. This year the competition had two nominations, “Portrait” and “Photo-reportage,” and received over two thousands of works.

“A lot of women started taking photos after digital cameras appeared,” says one of the initiators of the contest and its organizer Natalia Kompantseva (see issue no. 22, April 12, 2011, about this unique photographer and camerawoman). “On the photo websites I noticed that the photographs taken by women are steadily improving and they do serious social reporting. At the same time the women’s photos differ by their depth. There’s no doubt that women better understand the children’s psychology, since every woman is a mother, prospective or real.”

The winners of the contest were awarded specially designed medals and prizes; some received honorable diplomas.

“I found out about the contest on the Internet a couple of days before they stopped accepting works,” Moldovan photographer Natalia Chobanu, who won the competition, told to The Day. “I not only take photos of children. I’m interested in social portraits, people with their emotions and life. Photographs tell not about the appearance but about the soul.”

One more winner Marina Tupalska, from Belarus, only takes photos of children.

“It wasn’t the first time I participated in a contest — I’ve been to Germany and Austria before, where I showed the photos of kids,” says Tupalska. “When taking photos of children something unexpected always happens. Kids are very spontaneous. It’s a kind of hunting with a camera. Our life is not that positive that is why such exhibits make us see the kids as unique little creatures giving us the ocean of love.”

However, the exhibit “Children’s Planet” showed our little heroes not just from a positive angle. There were tsunami or Chornobyl victims, and lots of the photos had social components.

The organizers think that it’s food for thought…