Black Sea of Concrete: Film and Photo Book by Rafal Milach

Rafal Milach is a documentary photographer based in Warsaw Poland. He is publishing a book of photographs taken along the Ukraine's Black Sea coast. The short film stands on its own as a glimpse into an industrialized life on the sea in a region that seems caught in a limbo between centuries. The photographs are beautiful and informative. This is the kind of work that makes the devastation of nature its own form of beauty and inspires one to go there and tramp through the oil-slicked landscape in a good pair of boots. The beauty one can pull from the depressing lives of others! One person's struggle to pull a living out of the sea is another's gallery print. That's what being a photographer gives you – a free pass through the lives of others. Ultimately, in spite of all the questions, recording is better than not recording. The people in this film seem close to happy. It would be improper to live along this particular coast and affect a bright, cheery, bouncing disposition. One is liable to slip off a steel deck into frigid waters if one prances about too much. So take your bleak beauty where you find it. That's my advice.