Many people I’ve met here in Germany have told me they’re envious of my photography career and travel lifestyle, saying that they, too—if only they had the freedom and the luck—would love to do what I do. Well, buckle up, and let me tell you my “success story.”
Suburb in Kyiv, Ukraine where I grew up
I wanted to be a photographer since I was nine years old. But growing up in the 90s and early 2000s in Ukraine, I didn’t see photography as a realistic career path. No one I knew made a living from it, there were no photography degrees, and the equipment was far too expensive for me to afford, so for a long time, it remained just a dream. After my parents and I were evacuated from Chernobyl (yes, that was part of my luck, too), we lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Kyiv suburbs. My father, a nuclear physicist (and an amateur photographer), earned an equivalent of less than €120 a month for most of my childhood.
My father with a camera in his youth
My first university degree was in Political Science. Not because I truly wanted to work in the field, but because I was 16 when I started and it was one of the best programs in the country. I graduated with a BA and immediately went to Budapest for my Master's. Not because I wanted the degree, but because I’ve got a scholarship and back then, when Ukrainians needed visas even for tourism, earning financial aid to live in Hungary for a year felt like an incredible opportunity.
My year in Budapest was tough. My father became ill and passed away (from the long-term consequences of radioactive exposure in Chernobyl) while I was abroad, studying for a degree I was never interested in.
In Budapest, I met people who had studied in Berlin on scholarship, so I applied to a liberal arts program here. Again, not because I was passionate about studying, but because it was another chance to see the world on a student visa with a scholarship. Sounds crazy, right?
Selfie, Circa 2006
I fell in love with Berlin and finally heard about Lette-Verein, a renowned photography school. I applied, and out of 600 applicants, they selected 30, myself included. Lucky? Not so fast. As a Ukrainian, I could only get a student visa for a university, and Lette-Verein wasn’t one. So I returned to Ukraine and continued my MA studies, this time in journalism, because it felt close to what I wanted to do.
In Kyiv, a German Embassy official told me unironically that to study what I wanted in Germany, I’d either "need to get married or enroll in a university program". So, I applied again and was accepted into the film studies program at the Free University of Berlin. Finally, with my student visa, I came to Berlin and juggled classes at both the university and photography school, pursuing my true passion.
(My story is already seven paragraphs long, and I’m not even a photographer yet.)
Darkroom prints from my 1st year of my Berlin photography school
My student visa didn’t allow me to work as a freelancer or make enough money to live on. I relied on mini-jobs and occasional help from my mom in Ukraine, which wasn’t enough for a comfortable life, a decent apartment, or a good camera. I wasn’t eligible for BAföG or any other kind of financial support from the German government. Thus, while most of my German classmates enjoyed their youth, I spent my twenties constantly worried about my visa status, finances, and future.
Two years later, I applied to the University of Arts in Berlin for a BA in Visual Communication. Seven years earlier, I would have been thrilled, but now, after years in university and two MAs, I was simply exhausted. I wanted to build my career, but my residency status depended on my studies. I did an exchange semester at Parsons School of Design in New York (an amazing experience, but living in NYC was even more financially draining), finally graduated and, with my BA, was able to apply for a freelance residency permit.
Around the same time, my Instagram took off, and I started getting influencer jobs. This finally allowed me to earn money, travel, and build my portfolio. This led to me getting more serious photography jobs, publications in DER SPIEGEL and The New York Times, and clients like Nikon, Samsung, and Mercedes. I founded Bell Collective, published two books, started giving creative workshops, and mentoring female photographers. All of this happened after the age of thirty.
There were many other paths I could have taken: I could have studied IT or science and landed a high-paying job abroad, or I could have stayed in Ukraine and tried to build a career there. But that wouldn’t have been my dream, right? I wanted to study photography, live in Berlin, and travel—the only life that would have truly made me happy. So, at the time, I chose THIS path, and it wasn’t a simple one. Of course, my undiagnosed ADHD didn’t make it any easier either.
On the surface – people see my social media and portfolio and see a privileged woman who travels the world, stays in beautiful hotels, and lives a life full of adventure. And they’re partly right – I’m smart, which helped me secure scholarships to study abroad. I’m a white woman, so despite being a foreigner in Germany, I haven’t faced much prejudice or racism. I’m considered conventionally attractive, which I'm sure has helped me land some media interviews and campaigns. A few years ago, I finally got my German passport, so I can now travel visa-free to 190 countries worldwide. I am also aware that my decision to build a life in Germany instead of remaining in Ukraine 15 years ago ultimately shielded me from the devastating reality of the current war.
But on a deeper level, this life wasn't easy and I faced more obstacles than most people admiring my current life. Even my closest friends here in Germany don’t fully understand the hardship and anxiety I went through during my childhood, studies, and the first six years in Berlin. Even now, I often struggle to accept that I started my career much later than my European peers, who had the freedom to move and live wherever they wanted, along with family support and financial assistance. I missed out on the carefree years of my youth, and I’m not yet at the stage in my career where I could have been, had I started earlier.
My story is quite different from those of the middle-class Europeans I’ve met, but it’s far from unique among the thousands of foreigners from developing countries who come to Germany and other EU nations chasing a dream. For many, those dreams remain unfulfilled, often broken somewhere between the Ausländerbehörde and the Job Center. In that sense, I am fortunate by comparison. Still, I doubt many of my Berlin peers would trade the stability and security of growing up within Germany’s strong economic and social framework for any of my “luck.”
That’s why whenever people here in Germany tell me they’re envious of my career and travel lifestyle, saying they, too—if only they had the freedom and the luck —would love to do what I do, I tell them:
“Well, buckle up, and let me tell you my ‘success story.’”
