A man with a camera and a grenade launcher

Oles Kromplias was a Maidan activist, he barely escaped captivity in Crimea, and now he is a fighter in Azov battalion. Kromplias never parts with his film camera, neither in fights at the frontline nor in civilian life, to be able to capture “the exceptional moments.” Kromplias’s photos and texts have been published in Ukrainian Esquire and displayed at prestigious photo exhibits. But the man deliberately does not capture the best shots, he wants to live these moments himself.

What is he like, the man with a camera and Azov chevrons? The Day talked to Oles Kromplias about war, art, and even marketing, and made a storyboard of this conversation.

ON HOW I BECAME A VOLUNTEER

“I first came to the Azov battalion base on June 12, and we stormed Mariupol on the first night. Before that, the battalion commander asked who was willing to participate in the operation and who was to stay. I understood that I could not go as a journalist. So, I said I was not taking my camera and was going as a fighter. Instead, I took just one camera instead of two or three, and it was enough.

“I was expecting to spend two or three weeks with the battalion and that’s it. In a few weeks I asked for a leave to go back to Kyiv, wrote an article, and came back to Azov. When it became calmer in Mariupol, we, battalion fighters, trained for two months with foreign experts, it was serious. We did not spare either bullets or other supplies, or money.

“I already had some experience of the sort. I used to collect military equipment models, participated in expeditions of ‘black archeologists’ near Kyiv, read a lot of books on military history. However, I did not expect all this would come that handy. The tactics of a battalion or company, the rules of using artillery do not change in general.”

ON ACTION AT WAR

“The first impression from combat activities was that everything is happening much slower than in a movie. There is no action. A tank may approach, people might look at it, figure out which weapon to use to fire at it, two hours might pass, and the tank might be still standing somewhere. In reality, war is a hundred times slower than it seems. Only street fights can be fast. But even there, you can run 200 meters and then wait for half an hour.

“You barely ever need a gun, because close fights are extremely rare now. Artillery shells are fired in different directions, and there is no point in carrying around a lot of equipment. You need to equip yourself more or less light, so you could make it to shelter. But I always have a lot of equipment: a fifth class bulletproof vest, a sniper rifle, a hand grenade launcher, I like carrying my stuff with me.”

ON PHOTOGRAPHY STANDARDS

“I first picked up a camera in 2008, before that I didn’t even use the cheap ones. At first I photographed in a studio, and then I started making street photos. I have always found it interesting to watch people, actually that is why I worked in marketing, studied the market and peculiarities of the consumers’ choice. I also know quite a lot about fine arts. These two factors determined what I was going to capture.

“I am trying to follow the standards of Magnum Photos agency, they started the reporting genre in the 1950s. I traveled round South America, where people live more openly than in Europe. Latin Americans are out in the streets more often, so there are more interesting plots there.

“I am not a reporter who photographs according to some task. The goal of a report is to show the situation in general, no matter how you do it. I do not have a task to cover the whole situation, I just capture and select the best shots. I think of myself as a street photographer who shoots under certain circumstances.”

ON THE SECRET PORTFOLIO

“I collect my best photos and look at them every once in a while. Not all of them are clearly understandable, but I do not have a goal of getting 20,000 likes on Facebook. Two or three opinions of professionals mean much more than the approval of the general public. I used to work on one project for three years, going slowly, taking photos on weekends. Finally, I showed them to several of my acquaintances and also galleries curators. I printed the photos, those people approved, and now the photos just lie at home.”

ON EXCEPTIONAL MOMENTS IN THE FOCUS

“It is important for me to bring 3 or 4 cool shots from any trip, which will end up in my portfolio, and perhaps, 10 photos to show to a broader audience. If there are several great shots, I throw away a hundred of other ones. Besides, you never get to choose in the east: you either photograph or fire. Of course, I  choose the second, because I have duties, and photography is just a bonus. In   general, I took 3 films of photos in Maidan – 108 shots, and made about 360 shots in the ATO zone.

“When a certain situation is too beautiful and exceptional, I want to remember it, to live it through, to become its participant, and then I do not photograph at all. It is important for me to live the event, and the lens moves you farther from reality. I photograph in the heat of events, sometimes I am an event myself. For example, you support a wounded soldier with one arm, and photograph with the other. If not you, no one would help the injured. Unique photos appear in such moments.”

ON THE WRITING OF TEXTS

“I wish I could write better, I lack the artistic value. Poor editors gasp and say that I have sent them a draft of a rough copy. But my texts and photos are interesting because I am not a mere witness, but a participant of events.

“Hunter Thompson is my role model. His articles are emotional, built on the author’s attitude towards the situation. If I feel contempt about something, I do not give a damn about the principles of journalism. If I despise the DNR, I will write so. And I will defend my right to it until the bitter end. I used to have heated debates with editors about this before.

“It is easy for Europe to ponder over objectivity. But the Western media do not photograph how al-Qaeda fires at British soldiers’ positions, no one interviewed Osama bin Laden. I am on the side of conscious Ukrainian citizens in this information war, no pomp about that.”

THE ADVANTAGES OF FILM

“When an official permission for shooting is needed, the final argument is that I will develop the film only after I come back from the ATO zone, if I come back at all. And before it happens, at least a month would pass, during which a lot will change. Sometimes it happens that you develop a photo, and the person in it is already gone. It happened like that with photos from Ilovaisk.

“Also, film photography means minimum manipulations with photo editing software. I can show the negatives at any moment and prove that nothing was forged.”

ON THE RULE OF THE THIRD DAY

“Each of my expeditions lasts for at least a week. I photograph the same people over this period and simultaneously get acquainted with them. This results from immersion into the situation. The truth is that genuine worthy photos appear on the third day the earliest. For the first two days you just photograph everything like a fool, because you work in an unusual environment. So, I do not take photos on the first day at all, I use cheap film on the second one, and only on the third day I put quality film in and start working.”

ON CONSUMPTION AND WAR

“Modern people are told ‘consume and multiply, those above you will deal with everything.’ Those who live according to this rule cannot even be accused of indifference. People have been taught not to think. It hurts when I come back to Kyiv after a month-long expedition and see that the number of cars in the city decreased, but now they are more expensive. It feels like conscious people put all their efforts in saving the country, thus eliminating competition for others, the indifferent ones. But consumption is one of the cornerstones of the modern society’s existence, it is like electricity or invention of gunpowder.”

ON TEARS

“The slogan ‘Come back alive’ annoys me. It sounds like ‘Run, drop everything, let your comrade down, but survive.’ No one wants to die, but in my opinion, it should sound differently: ‘Carry out all the tasks, come back as a hero.’ You cannot cry. If we wept all the time, we would have been destroyed two months ago.

“The tearfulness of our nation is worse than someone’s indifference. Whining ends at the frontline. Ukrainians have high combat morale, but we have a lot of potential for growth in comparison with many European nations.”

ON FAVORITE ARTISTS AND DREAMS

“I adore Ukrainian artists. I especially like works by Oleksandr and Mykola Murashko. I am also very fond of Kostiantyn Trutovsky. I admire the artists of the 20th century who used folk motifs, painted scenes from life: vechornytsi (parties), weddings. I dream about collecting works by these artists. I also want to restore the ‘house with snakes’ in Kyiv. I just like Kyiv a lot.

“I do not like fighting. I want to do what I used to before, marketing communications. If I were of more use in that area, I would go back to peaceful life. And if my works help Ukraine in the information war, I can make a better contribution to victory than I would on the battlefield with a weapon.”