Photos

Vincent Mundy is a freelance photographer based in Kiev, Ukraine. He has been a regular contributing photographer to Bloomberg for the last three years.

In Depth recently spoke with Vincent to discuss his work covering the diverse geography and turbulent political climate in the Ukraine.

What kind of work do you do for Bloomberg? Do you shoot a variety of different subjects?

Bloomberg assignments have taken me all over the Ukraine, a very large and diverse country, and I’m on the road every month. During the course of my work for Bloomberg, I’ve shot the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, local business leaders and the assets and associated enterprises of leading domestic and international businesses in sectors such as steel, energy and food and beverages.

Your shot of the Bratstvo gas pipe in the Ukraine was impressive and caught our eye. What’s the back story behind this shot?

Due to the unrest in the Ukraine, I was unable to gain permission for an official tour of gas infrastructure sites for “national security reasons.” However, state gas officials unofficially told me of some remote but public locations where pipelines carrying Russian gas could be seen. Although they are thousands of kilometers long, the pipes are largely buried underground. However, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region and in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, where several of Russia’s main export pipes intersect before entering the EU, burying the pipes is not always possible.

Getting these shots entailed driving around icy and treacherous little roads in provincial western Ukraine, trekking off-road on foot through the snowy forests and walking across partially frozen rivers. It was tough going up and down forested ravines, wading through the snow, often slipping and tumbling into snow drifts. My guide, a local entrepreneur who runs mountain bike tours of the region, fell through what looked like thick ice as we tried to take a shortcut through a forest which we had got lost in when our GPS started behaving erratically. At one point, there were some security people and dogs nearby who saw us and started making their way over toward us. Not wanting to explain why we were there, for fear we could lose valuable time being questioned for “national security reasons,” we clambered up a forested embankment to get some higher angles before reluctantly moving to the next site.

What was the process of taking the photo like? What equipment and settings did you use? Were there particular challenges you faced while covering this assignment?

Time was short, with just a few minutes in each location, so I had to react quickly to get as many angles as possible, with the knowledge that we might not get to another site. I used a wide field of focus where I could be stable (such as this one standing on the river bank). For other shots, such as when I was standing precariously in the river bed, I had to shoot wide open, a limitation I tried to take advantage of. I mainly used my Canon 6D, as it’s very good at low-light focusing, something useful for assignments like this one and in places like old factories, where the available light is very poor. It’s also compact and performed flawlessly — despite being covered in snow and ice and having been splashed with freezing cold water.

Photographer: Vincent Mundy/Bloomberg
© 2014 Bloomberg Finance LP

— Lauren Meller