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  • Tatsiana Tkachova: If I stop loving the process, stop loving the way the cherries bloom, then it’s time to die

    Tatsiana Tkachova, World Press Photo nominee in the "portrait" category shares emotions with BAJ.BY, and tells what she finds really important and how to learn photography.

    Tat­siana Tka­cho­va: self-por­trait

    — How did you find out about your nom­i­na­tion for the World Press Pho­to?

    — I was watch­ing «Par­a­site» in a movie the­ater. I want­ed to see the time and saw the let­ter. I just could­n’t believe it, I was very sur­prised, I was real­ly shocked.

    I guess this is why they inform us two weeks before the pub­lic announce­ment, to acknowl­edge and embrace it. Last year, I sub­mit­ted the same project — the first sto­ry of «Between Right and Shame» was pub­lished in 2019, so I could apply this year, too.

    It’s great that a top­ic that I care about so much will be raised at such lev­el.

    Tatsiana Tkachova is among nominees for World Press Photo’s Portraits

    — Why this top­ic?

    — Because I don’t shoot what is not inter­est­ing for me. I wrote in the state­ment for the project: I found out that my moth­er had had an abor­tion after Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter, as she was afraid of the con­se­quences.  When I watched the Cher­nobyl HBO series, I took it as a per­son­al sto­ry.  I have a lot of ques­tions: for exam­ple, why is the word «abor­tion» pro­nounced in a whis­per? You can decide who will be born and who will not, and you are a hostage in this sys­tem… there are many lay­ers, which seem inter­est­ing to me.

    There are sit­u­a­tions when no one can judge, or take sides. This is life. No one is enti­tled to judge oth­ers. I tell it in a sim­ple visu­al lan­guage. But it works.

    — It may sound a lit­tle insen­si­tive, but is it fair that you are the first from Belarus to receive such a high award, after being a pho­to-jour­nal­ist for only six years? After all, oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers sub­mit­ted their works to World Press Pho­to, too.

    – It’s com­pli­cat­ed. No awards say that you are bet­ter than some­one else, absolute­ly. This does not mean that my works are bet­ter than the works of oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers. It so hap­pened. I believe «fair» (or unfair) is not the right word.

    — Have you ever dreamt of get­ting such an acknowl­edge­ment?

    — If you do some­thing that you love mad­ly, you have a dream to be heard, to do some­thing sig­nif­i­cant, a dream for this process to nev­er end. I don’t want it to stop, I enjoy it too much. I’d be a hyp­ocrite to say I did­n’t care about the award. No, it’s fan­tas­tic! But I’ve come to real­ize that it’s not the award that mat­ters. It’s impor­tant what I do, what I shoot, what I want to do lat­er, not the «good­ies» them­selves. If you get only awards on your mind, what will hap­pen next, after the next prize?

    If I stop lov­ing the process, stop lov­ing the way cher­ries bloom, then it’s time to die

    Now I want to fin­ish the sto­ry I start­ed. It’s impor­tant to me. This is a sto­ry about the women of my fam­i­ly. I want it to become more than just my sto­ry, I want it to appeal to oth­er peo­ple.

    The con­test is over, that’s it.

    In gen­er­al, what is real­ly impor­tant, is good health of peo­ple you love. If I had to pay with a leg for the vic­to­ry, I would pre­fer to keep both legs. Just don’t put it in the lead to your text, please!

    Pho­to from the project «Between Right and Shame». Pho­to: Tat­siana Tka­cho­va

    — You say that you sub­mit­ted this same project ear­li­er, but it was not nom­i­nat­ed. Loss­es demo­ti­vate. What do you advise oth­ers?

    — Well, if you lose, then what? I keep work­ing.  Any sen­si­ble per­son under­stands that any com­pe­ti­tion is 50–50. So I am cool with it.

    I real­ly want to thank the peo­ple who helped me in my work as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. BAJ cours­es give the pro­fes­sion­al skills to peo­ple who, for exam­ple, can’t study pho­tog­ra­phy abroad. Also, «Fotografi­ka», Katya Bahacheuskaya, Sum­mer school with Andrey Polikanov, Cech work­shops orga­nized by Yulia Darashke­vich. All con­ver­sa­tions with my friends around the top­ic, when I showed them my work — this is very impor­tant and valu­able for me. My first pho­tos on Takiye Dela web­site. I am sure, I would­n’t be in pho­tog­ra­phy with­out these peo­ple.

    And my moth­er, of course: she sup­ports me and believes in me, no mat­ter what hap­pens.

    Pho­to from the project «Between Right and Shame». Pho­to: Tat­siana Tka­cho­va

    — Will you raise your rates?

    — It is very dif­fi­cult to talk about rates and Belaru­sian media. But I believe that any work should be paid well,  so that peo­ple do not leave the coun­try, but stay here, to devel­op jour­nal­ism, pho­to­jour­nal­ism, and every­thing that we mean by cul­ture. They need to have afford life and work here.

    ***

    Tat­siana Tka­cho­va is a doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er, born  in the Mahil­iou region. She is the win­ner of the Vil­nius Pho­to Cir­cle and  «A Dot on the Map» con­tests. She took part in group exhi­bi­tions and pub­lished her works in  .  Ime­na, Takiye Dela,  Bird in Flight, and The Guardian.  Cur­rent­ly, she is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er for the Belaru­sian-lan­guage news­pa­per Zvyaz­da.

    Tat­siana Tka­chova’s web­site: tkachova.com

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