WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.160
Hey Adam, welcome to the National Portrait
Gallery again. Thank you Tara. And this

2
00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:10.080
is your fifth year as a finalist. Fifth year,
yeah I got to win it one day. Yes

3
00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:16.320
best of luck for winning Adam please. You
have one highly commended. I have, yeah

4
00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:19.560
last year I got highly commended but you
know thank you for having me down,

5
00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:23.320
super honoured to be here. Thank you for
always continuing to support the

6
00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:27.440
photographic portrait prizes or you're part
of the fanbam now so it's really

7
00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:31.160
lovely to see you again. Could you tell us
a little bit about your work for this

8
00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:36.080
year's prize? The portrait I made is of
a woman called Olha and she works for

9
00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:42.040
Ukrainian Railways. So what happens when
Russia invaded Ukraine last year?

10
00:00:42.040 --> 00:00:45.760
Everybody that worked for Ukrainian Railways
just went to work and didn't

11
00:00:45.760 --> 00:00:52.880
come home. Cooks, cleaners, fitters and turners,
repairing the stations, repairing

12
00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:56.800
the train carriages and they kind of made
this ecosystem work that kind of

13
00:00:56.800 --> 00:01:03.360
resisted the Russian attack. By ferrying
people away from the front lines, by

14
00:01:03.360 --> 00:01:09.160
transporting troops and munitions, transporting
soldiers, diplomats so it

15
00:01:09.160 --> 00:01:13.640
became this very kind of critical infrastructure
in them kind of you know

16
00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:19.360
holding off the Russian invasion. So Olha
was a deputy train station manager

17
00:01:19.360 --> 00:01:25.480
and I photographed her, made this portrait
in the in the basement where she hid

18
00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:29.040
at the train station when the Russian
troops came through her

19
00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:34.520
village and now she you know she after
she was able to come out of this she

20
00:01:34.520 --> 00:01:38.800
continued to work at the station and had been
for the months when I met her and I

21
00:01:38.800 --> 00:01:44.400
actually had my translator call her yesterday
and check in on her and she's

22
00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:48.160
she's alive and well and safe. There's still
a lot of missiles hitting her city

23
00:01:48.160 --> 00:01:54.200
but all her family's well and her home
as well so that was good news.