Daniel Vergara is director of photography for VICE. He spent two weeks in Ukraine with a VICE News Tonight crew documenting the battle for the south of Ukraine.“In a war, life goes on,” Vergara said over email after returning from Ukraine. “There are many stories and many people who continue to live. I try to document real life as much as possible.”The extraordinary image at the top of this article was taken in Mykolaiv, which pre-war was home to around 500,000 people. “We were in this maternity hospital trying to show the difficulty of giving birth in a country at war. Imagine giving birth to the sound of bombs falling,” Vergara said.
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Asked what responsibility he felt as a photographer capturing such intimate moments in unimaginably traumatic and tragic times, he said: “It is very difficult to show the suffering of others without them feeling invaded. I always try to first smile, shake hands, and hug people before I start to shoot. I wait until people feel comfortable with my presence.”He added: “The Ukrainians are very welcoming. What I witnessed in Ukraine was a people with a lot of strength and determination.”