Ukrainian photographer aims to recapture her life and career

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By Barbara McMurray

Special to the Laguna Beach Independent 

 

Julia Patyaka is a well-regarded photographer specializing in maternity, newborns, and families. Her clients rave about her intimate portraiture, achieved through the unusual amount of time she spends with her subjects. Before snapping the shutter, she finds the rhythm of their home life and relationships.

In March, the artful photographer arrived in Laguna Beach as a Ukrainian war refugee. Her upper-middle-class life in Kyiv as a successful businesswoman and philanthropist is a memory. Patyaka now mentors hundreds of other photographers twice a week, teaching free online sessions to other Ukrainians eager to boost their businesses. They are part of the diaspora created by the Russian invasion of their country.

Professional photographer Julia Patyaka and her family, including daughter Vira, 3, are struggling to create a new life after fleeing the war in Ukraine. Photo/Barbara McMurray

She reached Laguna Beach with her two children, her mother-in-law, and a gigantic Maine coon cat. Davyd, 6, is thriving as a kindergartener at Top of the World Elementary. Vira, 3, is a bit shy but smiles for a friendly stranger conversing with her mother.

Patyaka said her mother-in-law Larysa prepares meals and helps with the children as needed but is adrift after her life as a Zaporizhzhia business executive vanished. The frontline city in southeast Ukraine she called home has been ravaged in recent weeks by Russian troops. There will likely be no return. Julia fears Larysa has given up. Her mother-in-law has few friends and little desire to meet new ones, partly because she lacks English skills and is reluctant to venture out of the house.

Patyaka’s husband Bogdan, a chef, remains in Ukraine. He is currently working as a lead chef for a staff of cooks that feeds Ukrainian troops and civilians in shelters. There is no income, and the family has drained its savings. Bogdan feels he cannot abandon his team of food provisioners or his country in its time of need. However, the family needs him, too, said Patyaka.

“I understand and respect his choice and his motives,” she said, “but his children need him, I need him, his mother needs him. It’s a frustrating situation.”

The family has settled in an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) in the TOW neighborhood provided rent-free by school board member Carol Normandin and her husband, Ken Parker. A family friend gave Patyaka a car to use for 18 months.

Normandin commented, “After Russia began to attack Ukraine unprovoked, I had to do something immediate and concrete. On the sixth day of the war, I posted on a Ukrainian website that we had room for anyone who could come to the States. I had 27 responses by morning. Our youngest son suggested we move all 27 families in with us. Their grandma, Lareine Normandin, was a model to them and me in providing for those in need. We built the ADU for her to be closer to us. Cancer took her in 2020. There could be no better use of her loving home than providing a haven for people who need one.”

With Temporary Protection Status as refugees, the Patyakas are in limbo until Bogdan arrives, and they apply for the green cards that allow them to stay in the U.S. and work.

Patyaka has four degrees – in photography, economics, linguistics, and interpreting. Though she speaks English and three other languages, her family struggles to learn to communicate as they process the loss of everything familiar –– home, friends, and livelihoods. An animal lover, one of Patyaka’s pet projects was quietly funding the construction of an animal shelter in Kyiv. Late last year, Russian bombs destroyed it. She hopes to raise funds to somehow rebuild it. It has been a jolt to shift from life as a busy parent with a well-established career and a four-figure hourly fee for private photo coaching sessions to refugee status.

On the bright side, Julia received her work permit in early October and is offering her uniquely intimate life photography services locally.

“It is my goal to show people how they live, to love and value what they have the way they are.”

Of her shooting style, Patyaka said, “I don’t do ‘fast-food’ photography. I go deep. I spend about two hours with them first, at their home, the beach, wherever they choose, and wherever they’re comfortable. The location isn’t key – it’s the people. My photography is very personal. My clients tell me they have not seen anything quite like it.”

She strives for authenticity in her photos, images that reflect her commitment to capturing realistic family relationships.

“I want to show people being themselves, not pretending to be something they are not. For example, I don’t offer, as some photographers do, fancy dresses you can rent to wear for a shoot. Why would you want a photo of yourself in someone else’s clothes?”

Patyaka is excited at the prospect of working again. It cheers her to consider that the upcoming holiday season could bring her new clients who are attracted to her distinctive style. Her prices are competitive with other top Southern California family photographers. To view Patyaka’s work and inquire about bookings, visit her website.

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