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

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.

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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