Among the initiators: photographers Misha Pedan and Emine Ziyatdinova, Zaborona media editor-in-chief Katerina Sergatskova, Bird in Flight media co-founder Yevhen Safonov.

The platform is being developed with the support of the Swedish Institute, Hasselblad Foundation and Distant Viewing Lab at the University of Richmond (developers of Photogrammar).

The archive collects photographs by professional photographers, documentary-based artists and amateurs taken in Ukraine during the Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022.

The Warchive has two directions:

1. Archive — is built according to international archiving standards. Archival images are stored on servers in parallel in two countries to avoid the risk of destruction, and the images themselves are stored in good resolution in .jpeg or .tiff formats and are not available for viewing by users.

2. Online platform that allows everyone to find images and information about them by date, location, author or topic, compare them with other sources and images.

Photographers become members of the archive and receive support for creating their own photo projects, participate in exhibitions, public performances and other events organized by Warchive or in partnership with Warchive.

Currently, there is a micro-grant program for the creation of photo projects for current and future Warchive participants. The amount of support is the equivalent of 800 euros.

More information about this opportunity can be found here.

Photographers become members of the archive and receive support for creating their own photo projects, participate in exhibitions, public performances and other events organized by Warchive or in partnership with Warchive.Currently, there is a micro-grant program for the creation of photo projects for current and future Warchive participants. The amount of support is the equivalent of 800 euros. More information about this opportunity can be found: https://photogrammar.org/maps

The Warchive is a non-commercial and non-governmental project. It does not sell photos through the platform. The archive itself primarily aims to preserve photos of the war. The platform is a tool for informing about the war in Ukraine with easy navigation and search engine.

Granting permission for non-commercial/commercial use by third parties through the platform is solely the decision of the photographer and is specified in an agreement.

The process of providing photos for exhibitions, events or publications in books is to agreed with the authors.

1. Misha Pedan, photographer, curator, Sweden.

2. Evgeniy Safonov, co-founder of Bird in Flight magazine, Ukraine.

3. Kateryna Sergatskova, co-founder of the independent media Zaborona and the Foundation for Support of Journalists in Ukraine 2402, Ukraine.

4. Emine Ziyatdinova, photographer, consultant at Thomson Reuters Foundation, UK.

But first of all, the photos are selected by the authors. 

• Send 15-45 photos in full size in .jpeg or .tiff format
• Each photo should be accompanied by a caption (there is no limit on the length of the description) and should contain information about who or what is depicted, what and where is happening, when it took place and why.
• Include the exact date (especially if the photo does not contain this information in the EXIF file, or your camera dates the photo incorrectly) and the location where the photo was taken.
• If the exact location of the photo is sensitive information - please indicate this (for example, shooting at the locations of military units or facilities).
• Each series should be accompanied by a description. If it is not a series, then it should be a description in several words what unites the photos, for example: "Lviv during the full-scale invasion" or "Bucha after the occupation". If the photos are not combined thematically, they go to the Reportage or Other folder. It is better if you name the folder yourself.
• If the series is not created by the reportage method, then you need to include in the description what artistic practices and techniques you used to create the photo.
• Indicate which genre the series belongs to: photojournalism or artistic documentary. This information helps to distinguish the methods by which the photos were taken. As an important goal of Warchive is to tackle disinformation, we try to transparently indicate if color, content or staging alterations took place during the shooting.
• Include your portrait and the author who took it, as well as your short biography. Please indicate your name and surname in Cyrillic and Latin.

After providing complete information, the Warchive team will contact you.

In the long term, the archive will become one of the key resources for searching and analyzing photographs taken in Ukraine during the war. After the first stage of collecting photos from the beginning of the full-scale invasion, we plan to expand the time frame of the archive to the beginning of Euromaidan in 2013.

We are working with photographers from all over the world to collect photo series and photographs documenting this war, so we kindly ask you to send us photos and series as they are created. We also ask for participation in the events we organize.

We are also grateful for spreading information about the Warchive activities, donations and volunteer help. We are also open for partnership and cooperation.

It depends on the contract you signed with the customer or the agency that represents you. Warchive is a non-profit cultural project and we cannot pay fees for the use of photos that are the property of commercial companies. So we advise you to check the contract and contact the client if you can provide these photos. Usually, such companies are very accommodating and allow to use the photos for socially important projects.

If necessary, we can contact your customer, sign a trilateral contract upon agreement or provide an official letter of request to your customer.

The archive preserves the history of the war, as well as Ukrainian cultural heritage in the form of visual documentation.

Formed series/projects related to the subject of the archive will be stored.