About 3.3 million photos are taken every minute, worldwide.
For The Sydney Morning Herald’s photographers, each of those minutes – 1440 in a day – is an opportunity to capture images that define a moment in time. And at the NSW State Library from April 9, you can view the Herald photos that have made their mark, as part of the annual Photos1440 exhibition.
Viktor Baklanov, 3, sits in the basement of a Ukraine hospital, where he is sheltering with his father while his wounded brother Volodymyr is treated in one of the trauma wards. Credit:Kate Geraghty
On the ground in Ukraine, photojournalist Kate Geraghty was able to capture the devastating impact of conflict on civilians.
“You can look into the eyes of the person,” she said, adding that photographs evoke feelings that words can’t.
Through Geraghty’s lens we see 86-year-old Galyna Rasstanna, who cannot walk, lying in bed in her apartment building which was damaged by an airstrike in March.
That same month, three-year-old Viktor Baklanov was pictured playing a game on his tablet in the basement of an emergency hospital in Kharkiv where he is sheltering with his father. He had been driving with his brother and mother when they were shot at; his mother was killed and his brother is in intensive care.
Unable to walk, Galyna Rasstanna, 86, lies in her bed and weeps and begs for the shelling to stop. Credit:Kate Geraghty
“Sometimes we’re not just telling stories but also capturing testimonies of war crimes,” Geraghty said. “These people are enduring the unimaginable.
“Our job is to bring the emotion and show what is happening, to get people to stop to look at and feel even a tiny bit of what people in these images are going through.”