Frozen in time: reviving 19th-century technique to photograph Ukraine war
Seeking to document the Russian invasion of Ukraine, photographer Edward Kaprov turned to a technique used nearly 200 years ago during the Crimean War. His haunting black-and-white portraits have a timeless quality to them, suggesting that while technology has changed, war remains the same.
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Kaprov’s exhibition “The Face of the Latest War” is at the Baron Gérard Art and History Museum in Bayeux until 12 November as part of the Prix Bayeux Calvados-Normandy awards for war correspondents.
It is the fruit of several months spent going back and forth between the conflict in Ukraine and Israel, where he is based.
“I have tried to juxtapose the past and the present,” Kaprov says, a nod to the 19th-century photographic technique he used known as wet plate, or collodion process, which prints the negatives onto glass rather than paper.
The technique was used by British photographer Roger Fenton to document the last two years of the Crimean War from 1854 to 1856.
Over a hundred years later, Kaprov bought a van and transformed it into a dark room on wheels – just like Fenton did, albeit with an engine instead of a horse.
“I deliberately try to confuse the viewer so that they look more carefully. What at first appear as old photos are in fact contemporary images,” he told RFI.
Echoes of history
Kaprov grew up with stories of heroic wars and Russian exploits at the height of the Soviet Union’s power. He never thought he would witness conflict firsthand.
His wake-up call was a trip to Bucha, where he saw a mass grave of Ukrainian civilians murdered in April 2022.
“My eyes refused to believe so much cruelty and cynicism,” he writes in the exhibition notes.
When people asked him why he chose to go to the frontline in Ukraine, risking his life to take photographs, he answers simply: “I cannot stand aside.”
Surrendering to chance
His subjects have to stand very still for the picture to take form, not an easy thing to ask in the middle of a war. However, he says the people he met were keen to participate, once they understood his approach.
“I came up to them speaking Russian, coming from Israel and holding this strange camera…” he recalls.
The results are surreal black-and-white scenes, dreamlike, suspended in time. There are portraits of men and women in uniform sitting in trenches, in cars or beside the road with trees or bombed-out buildings behind them.
Some details are in sharp focus, others are blurry, while some are missing from the final print all together.
It’s all about technical manipulation, or “hocus-pocus”, Kaprov says; adjusting the lens, changing the depth of field, mixed with a bit of luck.
Despite his experience, he admits to never being entirely sure what he’s going to get. “I like challenges,” he laughs, acknowledging that the project was much harder than he could have imagined.
Ghosts of war
Kaprov indicates places in the frames where dogs, birds and other details could be seen during the shoot, but disappeared from the final print because they moved at the last minute.
They are still there in his memory, but now invisible, like ghosts. They belong to the stories Kaprov hopes to tell when he compiles the images for a book.
In the meantime, the viewer is left haunted by images of a past and present war, the futility of violence the thread between them.
“Nothing new under the sun,” Kaprov sighs, quoting the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes. Humans have always fought each other and sadly will continue to do so.
Kaprov says his wet-plate project is far from finished. He wants to return to Ukraine, where there are subjects he still wants to explore, like injured soldiers and their families.
“I don’t believe photography can end the war, but it gives me a reason to keep doing my work. To do what I do best with along with my suffering and my compassion.”
The short film “Ukraine: a photographer in the war”, which documents Edward Kaprov’s work in the field, won first prize for grand format television at the 2023 Bayeux awards. It was made in collaboration with Daniel Fainberg and Eugene Titiv, co-produced by Magneto Presse and Polka for Arte Reportage.
The Prix Bayeux Calvados-Normandy event is made up of eight exhibitions open to the public until 12 November.
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