Cloudy Skies and Melancholy

Brendan Hoffman Photographs Eastern Europe

Balloon salesman in Krasnoilsk, western Ukraine, during the Malanka festival in January.

Note: The Prime photographers will gather in San José, Uruguay next week to participate in the second San José Foto festival with support from National Geographic and Instagram. Prime will lead a Project Development Lab for emerging Latin American photographers. As we prepare for it, I am thinking about the visual voice and skills each member brings to this inaugural workshop.

Brendan Hoffman has been living and working in Eastern Europe since 2014, greatly influenced by his experience covering the Maidan protests in 2013. I’ve known Brendan for only a year, but I’ve watched how his photographs in the Ukraine, Belarus, and surrounding countries have developed a powerful visual language that conveys a sense of suspension and awakening.

Brendan agrees. “I think being based in Ukraine while covering the conflict there has made me sensitive to some of the nuances of the conflict and surrounding information/misinformation,” writes Brendan. “I’ve also been witness to the ways Maidan has really contributed to a rebirth of civil society in Ukraine. Nearly a hundred protesters died on Maidan specifically to obtain a government free of corruption for them, their families, and fellow Ukrainians, and it’s personal when government officials continue with their old self-serving ways.”

An anti-government march on Saturday, October 10, 2015 in Minsk, Belarus. Taking place the day before presidential elections, the march demonstrated a level of freedom not previously tolerated, though the election is still considered far from free or democratic.

Brendan’s color palette. Brendan confidently responds to the grays in the overcast landscapes. The blues and reds, no matter if they are muted or intense, help communicate life, blood, anger and love.

The Belarus Free Theatre performs at a secret location on Sunday, October 11, 2015 in Minsk, Belarus. The underground theater group operates in defiance of hardline authorities, incorporating blatantly political and otherwise controversial subject matter. Their work has led to police raids on performances and arrests of its members. The founders have been forced to go into exile.

A miner covered in coal dust watches television after coming up from underground at the Shcheglovskaya Coal Mine on Friday, March 25, 2016 in Makiivka, Ukraine.

Brendan shares his work. Every day. Brendan’s Twitter and Instagram feeds deliver a personal, visually superb and closely connected account of tragedy, defiance and humanity.

San José Foto. The participants in Prime’s Project Development Lab in San José Uruguay (April 7–10) will learn much from Brendan’s work flow and commitment to daily output on social media. He has built a community of 100,000 followers over the last couple years. The strength of social media is the circles of conversation that can be woven together. Brendan’s conversation with the people and places he photographs mixes with responses and comments — drawing people into the stories he is covering.

Petro Dragun, 18, center, in an elaborate bear costume, celebrates the Malanka Festival on Thursday, January 14, 2016 in Krasnoilsk, Ukraine. The annual celebrations, which consist of costumed villagers going in a group from house to house singing, playing music, and performing skits, began the previous sundown, went all night, and will last until evening.