Unexpected America / Несподівана Америка

A Ukrainian photographer Ivan DUDKIN has opened his exhibition “Unexpected America” at the Dnipropetrovsk Window on America Centre.
Mr. I.Dudkin is a member of the Ukrainian Union of Journalists and the Ukrainian Union of the Photo Artists.   The exhibition presented the best works made by the author during his eight trips to the USA.
The opening of the exhibition took place in the big hall of the Foreign Literature department of the DOUNB Library (Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Universal Scientific Library). It was attended by the big group of the active library patrons, students of the nearby Universities, staff of the Historical Museum and DOUNB Library.
 A few weeks prior to the opening of the I. Dudkin’s Exhibition the WOA Centre conducted a Photo Contest  “American-Ukrainian Connections”. Mr. Dudkin was appointed the Contest’s Jury Head. In Dnipropetrovsk he had a difficult task to select the best photos and the winner of the contest as over 20 persons participated in the Contest with several dozens of decent quality photos. The Contest’s Jury had to introduce several nominations to encourage the participants.
The winner of the Contest became Ms. Ganna Maxyuta with her series “Alaska through the eyes of the Ukrainian”. Ms. Ganna has visited Alaska twice as a participant of the “Work @ Travel” student exchange program. We have congratulated the Winner over the Skype connection. She was very pleased with her prize – the Canon camera.
The other Contest’s finalists received their certificates from the Jury Head Mr. I.Dudkin.
Ms. Ludmilla Kovtoniuk was awarded with the Certificate in the nomination “Reporter’s photos” for the series “ Americans in Dnipropetrovsk “ . It was no wonder that Ms. Ludmilla became the finalist of the contest. She is an experienced photographer and an active participant of the library events. She made several interesting photos at the DOUNB  Clubs’  functions. Ms. Olena Prytykina was awarded with a Certificate in the nomination “The Originality of the Plot” for her photos made in the USA.

After the Award Ceremony Mr. Dudkin told the audience about his trips to the USA .The stories about the photos on display were enjoyed by the audience and triggered a lot of questions to the author.  After careful observations of the exhibition photos many visitors left feedback in the guest book.
After the Exhibition Opening Mr. Dudkin invited the target group of visitors to a master class which took place on the comfortable “Window on America” premises. The amateur -photographers asked a lot of questions about the shooting techniques, photo colors and shots’ processing. (Number of participants  17 persons)
Among the visitors of the Exhibition’s Opening was Mr. Mykola Chaban, the journalist at the Dnipropetrovsk oblast newspaper “Zoria”. We hope to read an article about the Exhibition soon!
A good bottom line for the day was the demonstration of the documentary movie about New York city which was seen on many photos of Mr. Dudkin and   the Contest participants.
The group photo with a remarkable photographer and traveler Mr. Ivan Dudkin will be a good memento of the event for the WOA Centre Patrons.
Number of participants  57 persons.

Have a look at more pictures, please