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Ukraine .
It was barely light as we saddled up , our first assignment booked , and we took off across Lviv to visit a Soviet era coal mine . As calm and peaceful as Kiran is externally , there is an incredible internal drive that pushes him in his photography . A drive that saw us riding on less than three hours sleep , and rolling into the crisp , cool Ukrainian morning , the normality of life shocking to my pre-set ideas of travelling in a war-torn country .
Then the first check point which stirred memories of my first conversation with Kiran at the start of the war . How he had been viewed with such suspicion by the nervous soldiers , and how potentially dangerous it was for him when he was being searched and having his press credentials scrutinised . Thankfully we were waved straight through , and weaving between large concrete roadblocks , rusty metal hedgehogs in range of multiple automatic weapons , I was given a little insight into the early war pressure Kiran was under .
For security reasons we can ’ t reveal the location , or show pictures , of the mine from outside . Once inside though , it really was like stepping back in time to the 1970s , with everything appearing untouched since the Soviet times . Within minutes Kiran went to work , and I followed behind in observation mode . He uses two Canon Mk 1 cameras , one fitted with a 16-35mm lens and the other a 24-70mm lens . This means , mostly , Kiran was in remarkably close proximity to his subjects , and , where I photograph what ’ s around us with travel stories in mind , he has a completely different approach . Kiran has a concept for his pictures and uses the environment to
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