A shoot.
The story of an encounter
The story of an encounter
My name is Tata Melnyk. I have been photographing people since 2003.
Trust has to be earned.
Most people book a shoot to get photographs. What happens is two hours of being properly looked at.
The photographs will come, and they will be good. But a frame of someone who was actually seen looks different — and that cannot be added afterwards.
The first stretch is a warm-up: we talk, we walk. The truest frames come at the end, which is why I hand over more than I promise.
What I am after is that you put down whatever you hold in front of yourself. How I do that I don't fully know. The way there usually runs through awkwardness: it is frightening to see yourself.
All of it rests on trust.
The photographs will come, and they will be good. But a frame of someone who was actually seen looks different — and that cannot be added afterwards.
The first stretch is a warm-up: we talk, we walk. The truest frames come at the end, which is why I hand over more than I promise.
What I am after is that you put down whatever you hold in front of yourself. How I do that I don't fully know. The way there usually runs through awkwardness: it is frightening to see yourself.
All of it rests on trust.
Where this comes from
My grandfather always had a camera with him. In his darkroom I was his assistant and his model — I watched myself appear in the tray out of a blank sheet of paper. The magic was never in the picture. It was in the process.
So I know both sides of the camera, and I know first-hand that standing in front of one can be frightening.
BEFORE Photography
Until 2014 I worked at a Ukrainian TV channel as a satellite coordinator, setting up live broadcasts: booking satellite time, working with the engineers in the OB vans, keeping track of who was going on air and when. A live broadcast cannot be reshot. After that, account management in telecom. The channel no longer exists — it was shut down a couple of years ago.
I started shooting in 2003, on film, for myself, alongside that first job. By 2014 I was photographing for other people, still without leaving the office.
In 2016 I left for Georgia, and there I worked as a photographer and nothing else. That is ten years: hotels, schools, brands, hundreds of portraits, and a life of my own.
What I brought back is experience, a trained eye, and southern warmth — you can see it in the way I work with light.
I am in Kyiv now. Among other reasons, because it matters to me to be on my own land.
I started shooting in 2003, on film, for myself, alongside that first job. By 2014 I was photographing for other people, still without leaving the office.
In 2016 I left for Georgia, and there I worked as a photographer and nothing else. That is ten years: hotels, schools, brands, hundreds of portraits, and a life of my own.
What I brought back is experience, a trained eye, and southern warmth — you can see it in the way I work with light.
I am in Kyiv now. Among other reasons, because it matters to me to be on my own land.
