In Kiev, at the State Museum of Aviation. Antonov will host a unique photo exhibition “Angels of the Black Sea” by the famous military photographer and volunteer Dmitry Muravsky. Within the framework of the project, 12 photographs of combat aircraft of the Air Force of Ukraine, taken during the large-scale exercises of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the Black Sea, will be presented.
One of the important missions of the project is to increase the glorification and prestige of the profession of a military pilot, popularize the romance of the defenders of the Ukrainian sky and demonstrate the power of the Ukrainian Air Force.
The exhibition will begin its work on June 4 and will be available for visiting throughout the year. The exposition will be presented in one of the museum’s concrete hangars – a storage for fighters with an area of 230 square meters. The space will be filled with several types of media in different planes. Works are printed on ultra-light aluminum panels using digital high-precision printing technology.
“It is worth noting that only rockets are white in the photo, which adds a certain amount of drama, as if emphasizing the true purpose of these beautiful and powerful hybrids of a machine and a person,” says Dmitry Muravsky. – We paid special attention to those works where the sea gave us a living and mirror-reflective surface. We used high-gloss polished aluminum.
A specially selected angle of artificial light sources gives the effect that we see in the video at the time of shooting. Another innovation was aimed at increasing the realism of some of the works. Traditional technologies have proven to be nearly impossible to realistically print images with a mirror-like surface reflecting the setting sun. Therefore, for the first time we used high-gloss aluminum for this and some features when shooting in backlight. “
The project “Angels of the Black Sea” was filmed in September 2020 during the large-scale exercises of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the Black Sea in the Ochakov area of the Nikolaev region. The photographer’s lens hit the aircraft types MIG-29, MIG-29UB, SU-25, SU-27 and SU-27UB with combat weapons on board.
The survey was carried out directly from the open ramp of the An-26 aircraft specially prepared for this task, as well as from the SU-27UB. The images were taken both from extremely low altitude, where pilots maneuvered when striking the surface of the earth, and from a height of 33 thousand feet (10 km) above the ground.
The author managed to capture unique moments in the photographs. The planes were shot from such angles that even the pilots themselves often do not see during flights. One of the works depicts the unique moment of the paired launch of air-to-air missiles. Because of the speed of the shot, it is not only very difficult to photograph it, but the firing of military missiles themselves is quite rare.
The exposition “Angels of the Black Sea” is multimedia and will consist of two parts. In addition to a series of photographs by Dmitry Muravsky, the project will also broadcast a short documentary of the same name, based on the author’s extensive archive of 11 years of combat aviation flights – hundreds of hours of video filmed for control purposes during filming. The video was directed by Semyon Gorov.
During filming, a Leica SL camera (type 601) with a LEICA APO-VARIO-ELMARIT-SL 90-280 f / 2.8-4 lens and a Canon EOS 5DR camera with a Canon EF 70-200mm II lens was used.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dmitry Muravsky is a military photographer, volunteer, and sports pilot with 25 years of experience, including 10 years of experience in flying military aircraft. He flew about 1000 independent sorties – more than 100 flight hours on various types of combat aircraft and helicopters.
Dmitry’s experience as a war photographer is supported by the status of a participant in hostilities and distinctions issued by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense and the National Guard of Ukraine. Dmitry is a member of expeditions as an honorary photographer of the Royal Aero Club ROYAL AIRSQUADRON to the UK, France, Israel, Jordan and Ukraine.
Dmitry Muravsky is the author of a large archive of photos taken in the ATO zone from 2014 to 2018. They became part of the book “Through the War. A Volunteer’s View ”, the English version of which was presented in Brussels at the NATO headquarters.
Personal exhibitions of Dmitry’s photographs are widely known all over the world and were presented at the headquarters of NATO and the UN, the UN General Assembly, the Verkhovna Rada, the Administration of the President of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, etc.