When first selfie, color photo and commercial camera were created: Petro Poroshenko’s photographer arrived to Uzhgorod

   The meeting with famous Ukrainian photographer Mykhailo Palinchak took place in the "Owl’s Nest". The public discussion was entitled "Photography as a document" and lasted more than three hours.

The road to success

      Mykhailo Palinchak is from Uzhgorod. The love of photography was instilled in him by his father. His father bought him his first camera when he was 13 years old.  

After graduation, Mykhailo goes to Kyiv, where he begins doing street photography, while working in the economy.

  Photography became the main job for Palinchak only after the Euromaidan.  Although by that time, he had already taken pictures for the Reporter and Belgian De Standaard, and won several awards at national and international competitions. Later, he was invited to become the President’s photographer.   

Brief history of photography

   Mykhailo Palinchak was prepared to the meeting in Uzhgorod. He made an interesting and meaningful presentation of the history of photography. In particular, the audience learned that the first selfie was made in 1839. And in 1853 alone, 3 million photoportraits were made. The first image assembly (overlapping of five negatives) was made in 1858.

  Also, the audience learned that the first color photo was taken by a mathematician back in 1861. And in 1900, the first commercial camera was created.

  Mykhailo Palinchak noted that now is a "selfie era." His says that people take selfies with the President Petro Poroshenko much more often than taking his autographs. And to confirm the statistics, Mykhailo took a selfie with Uzhgorod residents.

Old photos and Transcarpathia

    Transcarpathia is a colorful region. The land which has always attracted photographers. At the meeting with Mykhailo Palinchak, they viewed series of documentary photos of Transcarpathia that were taken at different times by photographers from other countries.

    At the informal lecture in the "Owl’s Nest", he showed a selection of photos taken by different photographers in Transcarpathia. In general, we can say that most of them focused on the colorful countryside of the region.

    However, Mykhailo Palinchak did not find many photos related to Transcarpathia for the period of 1940s-1980s. As for the Soviet period, he believes that most of the photos that were taken at that time were superficial.

    So, you do not have to go elsewhere from Transcarpathia to make a global photo project, there are many thing to photograph in our region too.

Think out of the box

    As for Mykhailo Palinchak (Jr.), in 2015 he photographed the current state of Solotvyno. He also showed a photo report from the East – Shyrokyne. He plans to go there again. He says the first trip was only to see the terrain.

     At the end of the lecture, Mykhailo Palinchak urged the audience: "Think out of the box." And you, meanwhile, can take a look at the author’s photos HERE 

    This was the fourth meeting with a specialist interest organized by the educational platform Nomen. Next Saturday, something interesting is going to happen too. Watch for announcements.