Yes, the war in Ukraine impacts photography, at least in small ways. I use several macOS products that are Ukraine-based, for instance, including MacPaw’s CleanMyMac X (recommended). On the photography side, Skylum was founded and is based in Kyiv, and probably the Ukrainian company you’re most familiar with. HeliconSoft is another. I’ve interacted directly with a number of the managers in these Ukrainian companies over the years, and find them to be excellent in almost every respect.
I’m impressed that all these entrepreneurial Ukrainian companies whose products I’ve purchased quickly put simple messages on their Web sites outlining what they’re doing in response to the invasion and what they hope others will do to support them.
I was just getting ready to add a Russian lens company to the mirrorless lens database, but I’m going to hold off doing that. While it’s highly unlikely that employees of that company have any direct involvement in the assault on Ukraine, one of the few things most of us can do about the conflict is to stop supporting anything Russian in hopes that Russian citizens will rise up against their autocrat who started this nonsense.
I try to avoid political topics on my sites—other than the Canon/Nikon/Sony debate ;~)—but Russia’s actions were unprovoked, unnecessary, and are causing needless and grave harm to many just trying to live their lives, including people I know and people making products you use. While the spillover into our lives may be small at the moment, it’s not reasonable to tolerate the aggressive actions of Russia, as they’ll eventually cause a bigger issue for us if we simply look away and ignore them.
Ukraine has my thoughts, well wishes, and support, and I believe that should be true of any empathetic human on the planet.
