{"id":777116,"date":"2026-09-20T20:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T20:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777116\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T20:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T20:12:12","slug":"west-belfast-photographer-capturing-frontline-of-ukraine-war-hopes-to-turn-lifes-work-into-photobook-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777116\/","title":{"rendered":"West Belfast photographer capturing frontline of Ukraine war hopes to turn life\u2019s work into photobook \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A west Belfast<\/a> photographer and video-journalist who has spent the past four years on the frontline of the Ukraine war<\/a> has said that he hopes to turn a collection of his life\u2019s work into a photobook following his first exhibition in Belfast. <\/p>\n

Conall Kearney, 29, is originally from the Beechmount area but has been living in Ukraine since the outbreak of the war in 2022. <\/p>\n

The award-winning photographer, whose work focuses on the human impact of political unrest and war, held his first home exhibition, Chaos Stadt, at Belfast Exposed Photo Gallery earlier this month.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Irish News at its conclusion, Mr Kearney said that the exhibition, which focused on his work in cities including Berlin, Belfast, Paris and Kyiv felt like \u201ca bit of a homecoming\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Belfast<\/a>\"‘We’ve<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe exhibition is more or less ten years\u2019 worth of work that I hope to turn into a photobook,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Kyiv-based,Mr Kearney is hoping that his work so far can be made into a photobook PICTURE: BRIAN LINCOLN <\/p>\n

\u201cI started photography professionally maybe about 15 years ago, where I started to photograph protests, <\/p>\n

\u201cAs I got older, I started to travel to different places in Europe, covering riots, and then kind of going through the steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to the Middle East for a little while, covered the revolution in Hong Kong, before eventually finding myself in Ukraine, covering the full-scale invasion in 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Kearney said that he had always had a \u201cdeep interest in Ukraine\u201d and had travelled there before the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the war had started in 2022, I\u2019d already had a kind of involvement in conflict journalism and photography,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Kyiv-based,His work has centred on his time in cities ranging from Belfast to Berlin PICTURE: BRIAN LINCOLN <\/p>\n

\u201cLiving in Berlin, it was extremely easy to get to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin the first few days of the full-scale invasion, I found myself in Ukraine. And within a week, I found myself in the city of Kharkiv, at the time one of the most intense front lines of the war. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that was kind of my first major exposure to proper warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Kearney said that his work has seen him in countless dangerous situations, but that being in the \u201cfront row of history\u201d and documenting it is \u201ca big reason\u201d why he does what he does.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven before Ukraine, I\u2019ve been in many, many cases of police violence, where I\u2019ve been beaten up, by protesters, police, got my camera broken many times,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen in Ukraine, I\u2019ve been injured three times, once by a dog, twice blown up by the Russians.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt, of course, comes with a cost, but at the end of the day, I actually would not change what I do at all. <\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in Ukraine, having been around people who have died also doing this job, I wouldn\u2019t change that, because they wouldn\u2019t want me to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, Mr Kearney has released a series of \u2018zines\u2019 – self-published collections focussing on his work in specific locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOriginally Belfast was obviously meant to be the first zine; I\u2019ve made three zines, but in the end, after six, seven years of the series, Belfast has only been the latest one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been this whole struggle about where I belong, what am I doing, am I too local for foreign places, am I too foreign for local places? <\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, it\u2019s just a kind of self-discovery project, in a way, for the Belfast edition. It is just about kind of diving deeper into this, living in the shadow of conflict, and a post-conflict society, and how we\u2019re dealing with that in a more visual way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next zine in his series is intended to document his time in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A west Belfast photographer and video-journalist who has spent the past four years on the frontline of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,8798,73699,47824,56,54,55,25888],"class_list":["post-777116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibition","tag-journalist","tag-photographer","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-west-belfast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}