Originally from Brooklyn NYC, and based in Athens, Greece since 2019, Byron Smith is a professional photographer who has been working as a freelancer since 2011. His submission Testament ‘22 was shot in Ukraine in 2022, starting a few days after the Russian invasion through to the end of December. In all, he visited Ukraine six times that year, travelling as extensively as he was able to.
‘I’m a seasoned photojournalist of conflict’, he explains, ‘and a few days after the war began, I embarked on a mission to document the country at war, hoping my work could help tell the unvarnished truth of what is happening on the ground at a human level. I made the pictures to show the truth of this war’s horrific nature to make a statement about the victims of this senseless conflict in Ukraine. I wanted to show the strength, dignity, resilience, and courage of a population who didn’t ask to bear this burden but who still believe they are doing it so the West and other democratic nations will not have to.’
He drew on Ukrainian culture for the title of his project. ‘It comes from my take on the original poem Testament (Zapovit, 1845) by Taras Shevchenko, whose literary works are considered the basis of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a considerable extent, of the modern Ukrainian language.‘ And it’s obvious that the time he spent in Ukraine in 2022 had a profound effect on him: ‘I was surprised by the hospitality of the Ukrainian people, some who had lost everything and had nothing but still tried to offer me whatever they had to make me, an outsider, comfortable. Under such dire conditions it’s something that will stick with me forever.’ It’s a recurring theme which says a lot about the Ukrainian people and their struggle.
Byron is clear about what being selected for DPA23 means for him: ‘I’m grateful to be recognized by such a prestigious photographic organisation. It means much to me since Roger Fenton (who helped establish the RPS), who photographed in Moscow, Kyiv and most famously in Crimea, was one inspiration as to why I became a photojournalist with a focus on the causes and effects of conflict. Winning recognition for this work helps keep the interest alive in Ukraine two years after the initial shock may wear off on the public at large.’
A Polish-Ukrainian couple says goodbye while on the line at the Polish-Ukrainian border checkpoint. Many of the nation’s men and some fighting-age women have been streaming across the border to join their countrymen to repel the Russian assault on the country on February 26, 2022.Byron Smith
Ukrainian refugees line up to board a train to Poland at the Lviv central train station in Lviv, Ukraine. March 3, 2022. Less than one week into the war of Russian aggression in Ukraine, 1 million refugees have left their homes. In the second round of talks, both countries agreed to create a “humanitarian corridor” and a potential ceasefire to allow more refugees to flee.Byron Smith
A restaurant in Baryshivka, a village 60km east of Kyiv, was damaged when a Russian ballistic missile struck the area. The strike injured six people and destroyed surrounding residential buildings. March 11, 2022.Byron Smith
A group of Ukrainian IDPs who fled Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has seen heaving fighting and shelling, arrive at an area before the destroyed bridge into the city during the third week of the Russian invasion.Byron Smith
A group of humanitarian volunteers, who were aiding fleeing refugees, and journalists, are forced to take cover in a ditch on the side of the road as an incoming Russian artillery barrage strikes an area near the bridge that links Kyiv to Irpin. The site has seen intense fighting during the third week of the Russian invasion. March 13, 2022.Byron Smith
The body of a civilian is evacuated from Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has seen heaving fighting in the third week of the Russian invasion. March 12, 2022.Byron Smith
March 14, 2022, Ukraine: Yelena Herhel is consoled over the body of her husband Arkadiy Yasinsky, a civilian killed by Russian forces at a military checkpoint in Stoyanka, a village west of Kyiv, during funeral services in Kyiv on March 14, 2022.Byron Smith
Natalya mourns the death of her son Alexander, a 40-year-old real estate agent. According to her, he was killed as he tried to rescue her while Russian troops entered the city as she hid in an underground shelter. Alexander’s wife informed her mother-inlaw about her son’s fate two weeks after leaving hiding. She says when volunteers found him, he showed signs of torture and had a gunshot wound to the back of the head. May 2022.Byron Smith
Sunday mass in a church once situated on the front line and subsequently sustained damage from Russian shelling in Chernihiv on June 19, 2022.Byron Smith
Five kilometres from the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian special forces soldier with the 130 Battalion out of Kyiv sleeps amid artillery and heavy weapons fire with his squad at a safe house. The previous day he and his team provided “security” to enable a mining squad to carry out their mission between the Ukrainian and Russian frontlines. November 14, 2022.Byron Smith
Ukrainian field medics arrive from the front to treat a wounded soldier injured from an artillery attack in Bakhmut at a frontline clinic outside the city on December 29, 2022, in Bakhmut, Ukraine. A large swath of Donetsk region has been held by Russianbacked separatists since 2014. Russia has tried to expand its control here since the February 24 invasion.Byron Smith
A surgeon with Ukraine’s 5th Separate Assault Regiment codenamed “Raindrop,” left, checks the vital signs of a Ukrainian infantry soldier as he is treated for wounds sustained from a Russian artillery attack in Bakhmut at a frontline stabilization clinic located outside the city on December 29, 2022, in Bakhmut, Ukraine. Russian-backed separatists have held a large swath of the Donetsk region since 2014. Russia has tried to expand its control here since the February 24 invasion.Byron Smith
A Ukrainian combat medic leads a soldier out of a frontline clinic after he witnessed the death of his commander on the operating table as he was being treated for shrapnel wounds to the head and chest during a Russian artillery attack in Bakhmut, in Donetsk Oblast on December 28, 2022.Byron Smith
Ukrainian youths contribute to the war effort by working on a camouflage net for the army in Lviv, Ukraine, on February 28, 2022.Byron Smith
Serhiy, 56, spends the afternoon helping his elderly neighbors recover buried tools in the rubble of their home to rebuild their house in Chernihiv on April 28, 2022. The city, with a population of 285,000, had been under siege for 39 days and killed 700 people, according to the city’s mayor.Byron Smith
