Chatting the Pictures - Ron Haviv's Coverage of The Evacuation of Irpin and the Ukrainian Resistance
Michael Shaw and Cara Finnegan
This photo was taken by Ron Haviv of the VII Photo Agency. It shows residents walking past a body lying in the middle of a road as they evacuate the city of Irpin, north of Kyiv, on March 10, 2022.
That day, Russian armoured vehicles engaged the Ukrainians at the northeastern edge of Kyiv in the ongoing attempt to encircle the capital. Up to that point, the northwest suburbs had endured the most Russian bombardments.
In the video below, illustrated with Haviv’s photographs, we observe the defensive barriers, the visible carnage, and the surprisingly orderly movement of the citizens. We also discuss the nature of the resistance and the spirit of the Ukrainians in the face of the devastating circumstance.
Chatting the Pictures is a video series featuring Reading the Pictures' publisher Michael Shaw and visual academic Cara Finnegan analyzing key news photographs. VII Insider is pleased to partner with Reading the Pictures to bring episodes of Chatting the Pictures to the VII Insider community, beginning with this close reading of some of Ron Haviv's work in and around Kyiv.
You can listen to Ron Haviv's two audio dispatches (mentioned in the video) here and here.
Michael Shaw is an analyst of news photography and visual journalism, a frequent lecturer and writer on visual politics, photojournalism, and media literacy, and the founder and publisher of Reading the Pictures. He is also a clinical psychologist and organizational consultant in private practice.
Cara Finnegan is a writer, teacher, and historian of photography,. She is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her books and essays explore the role of photography as a tool for public life. Cara’s most recent book, Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital, was published by University of Illinois Press in May 2021. Since 2018, Cara and Reading the Pictures publisher Michael Shaw have co-hosted Chatting the Pictures, a webcast analyzing key news photos of the week.