SNAPSHOTS SENT HOME

US combat veteran and photographer JT Blatty journeyed to Ukraine in 2018 to capture oral history and portraits of Donbas volunteer soldiers. In frontline bunkers and Kyiv flats, her story began to blend with theirs in a universal bond of combat veterans, compelling her to stay as a new war began.

Like many post-9/11 combat veterans, JT Blatty struggled to regain her sense of purpose in the first years returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2018, a chance encounter brought her to Ukraine, drawn in by the familiarity of war and those who serve in wars. Over five years, JT captured the oral history and portraits of a tribe of revolutionaries, the Donbas volunteer soldiers. As she embedded with them on the front line in bunkers and forests, and in Kyiv flats, JT's story began to blend with theirs in a universal bond of combat veterans, compelling her to stay as a new war began. Documentary photographer and photojournalist and writer Jenn Tuero (J. T.) Blatty graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2000 and served six years as an active-duty U.S. Army officer, deploying with the first troops into Afghanistan following 9/11 and again into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After completing her service to the military, she pursued freelance photography and writing as a career, working as a regular contributor for the New Orleans Advocate and as a FEMA disaster reservist photographer after completing an internship with National Geographic Traveler. Since early 2018, she has been documenting the conflict in eastern Ukraine while simultaneously creating photographic/audio archive of the 2014 volunteer soldiers of the Donbas (exhibited in Chicago and NYC in 2019-2020, March 2022 in Kyiv postponed due to the full-scale invasion), the revolutionaries who self-deployed during the original Russian invasion of the Donbas and saved Ukraine's independence. A 2021-2022 Ukraine Fulbright alum, Blatty continues her photojournalistic work in Ukraine and recently completed writing Snapshots Sent Home: From Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine (publication Feb 20, 2024), a military memoir that speaks of her journey in Ukraine, the volunteers, and a universal bond between combat veterans around the world. Blatty is represented by Redux Pictures and the Martine Chaisson Gallery (New Orleans), and is the author of Fish Town: Down the Road to Louisiana's Fishing Communities, a 2020 winner of a Bronze IPPY Award as Best Regional Non-Fiction in the South.