We Talk Photo

We Talk Photo


Eyes Wide Shut in Ukraine by Cole Thompson

March 11, 2022

John and Jack welcome back Cole Thompson to the show.  Cole recently sent out a mailing with a collection of images in it, all centered around the people of Ukraine. With his images and words, we were moved by his expression and wanted to have him on the show to talk about this body of work.


The collection of images is titled Eyes Wide Shut and is a group of images of everyday Ukrainians with their eyes closed.  Cole realized that when you normally ask someone to take their picture, they smile big and put on a “camera face”, showing only what they want you to see.  One way he was able to get folks to drop the camera face was by asking them to close their eyes, which they did!  Most did not speak english, so this was accomplished with lots of sign language and gesturing.  Eventually he came away with a body of work, both poignant and beautiful, that is doubly impactful these days with the war going on.


Read the article HERE:


We encourage you to check out Coles website at ColeThompsonPhotography.com


The We Talk Photo podcast is dedicated to being an entertaining, informative and lighthearted discussion about a wide range of photographic topics centered around landscape and nature photography.  Hosted by Jack Graham and John Pedersen, long time industry professionals, they will bring you in to their conversations about gear, recent trends, insightful interviews with industry leaders as well as entertaining stories from their collective experience in the photography business.