Ana Batrićević: How Photography Supported Me Through Cancer

It’s been a few years since I last met with LightRocket photographer Ana Batrićević and the first thing I notice is her hair.

“You look different,” I say.

Ana smiles, demurely.

Her fashionable red-dyed bob cut has been replaced by flowing locks of natural brown hair which fall well below her shoulder. As I am soon to discover, it’s a change laden with significance.

Ana’s Photography: The Research Journalist

In 2023, I published a story about Ana’s work using photography as a research tool. I described her as merging “academia with art and documentary photojournalism,” suggesting it be called “research journalism.”

At the time, Ana was working on several projects. She was using conceptual images to highlight issues relating to women’s rights and gender-based violence - a photograph of a flower taped over a cracked wall, a pair of red shoes on a ruffled bed of white silk.

Ana was also taking her camera into prisons, seeking to deepen our understanding of the inmates. She showed how contact with dogs could be a valuable form of therapy. She wanted her pictures to prompt “empathy” and “compassion”.

A criminologist by training and currently a Principal Research Fellow at the Belgrade Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research, Ana is quiet, thoughtful, and measured in her responses.

I find it hard to imagine this slight, rather bookish, soft-spoken woman moving amongst hardened, possibly violent, men in a Serbian jail. Why hadn’t she chosen to photograph women instead; surely it would have been easier, and safer?

“Women are more vulnerable,” she replies. “They’re more difficult to photograph than men.” In answer to my concerns about the risks she might face surrounded by male convicts, she says simply “I don’t pay much attention to gender. I think one should be open hearted and believe in the good in people and always try to extract the best from the subjects you are photographing, to capture that sparkle of humanity, of something positive.”

“When people recognize you have good intentions, they are willing to co-operate. Being honest and sincere is the most important thing,” she explains.

As Ana talks about her work, I am struck by her devotion to her craft, by her sincerity, and by her commitment to the stories she seeks to tell. Her pictures have a ‘quiet’ power.

In one set, called “Everything That Grows”, plants sprout from places they shouldn’t: springing from cracks in the pavement or out of a drainpipe. The kind of detail that most of us wouldn’t notice, let alone attach significance to. The pictures speak of resilience, of a natural will to survive in unexpected places - against the odds.

Pink Frame, a Photovoice research project by Ana Batrićević with the members from 'Let's be Together'

Let’s Be Together: Photographing the Cancer Journey

Resilience and survival against the odds are themes at the center of one of Ana’s longest-running projects, documenting the activities of an association of women cancer survivors called ‘Let’s be Together’.

The project began around six years ago and became more personal than Ana could have imagined or feared.

“I became interested because a colleague’s mum was a part of the group. I was just taking pictures of my colleague’s mum and the association’s activities and that was it.”

That is until events took an unexpected and dramatic turn, transforming Ana from observer to participant.

“In 2022, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. That’s where my new hairstyle came from,” Ana explains, running her hands through the thick mane of hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I lost my hair. This is all new hair.”

Suddenly, ‘Let’s be Together’ was much more than a project: it became a lifeline and a source of vital moral support.

“It was amazing to know there were so many people thinking about you and sending you good vibes. My awareness of their strength and their ability to move on gave me hope.”

Becoming Part of the Story

Photography quickly became a part of Ana’s healing process. She continued to take pictures, including of herself.

“I became part of the story,” she says.

At this point, Ana shows me a black and white image of three shaven-headed silhouettes against a window…gradually fading. She explains that these are actually three superimposed images of herself, merged into a single frame. “I called it Fading, because I had this feeling that I was disappearing, literally fading from existence.”

Photo by Ana Batrićević

Echoing her growing introspection, Ana’s work with ‘Let’s be Together’ began turning inwards too. “I did a training for something called Photo Voice which was developed in 1990s and is very applicable for health improvement,” she explains. “The idea is to shift power to the participants. They take pictures of their everyday life which helps us better understand what is important to them, and their problems.”

Today, alongside Ana’s own powerful images of ‘Let’s be Together’, members of the group are learning to use their mobile phones to express what they are feeling and experiencing in pictures. As a fellow survivor, Ana is helping them on that journey.

See Ana’s Photovoice Journey

The Quiet Power of Photography

Listening to Ana’s story, and looking at the body of her work, I am struck by how simple the power of photography can be. Ana’s work is about quietly extracting the extraordinary from the (seemingly) ordinary.

Her photography is about bringing a creative and curious eye to the forgotten corners of our existence. Life in prison may sound like an extreme subject but for those living the daily routine of incarceration, there is monotony and mundanity. Survivors of Cancer have experienced trauma and have been tested to the limits of physical and mental endurance and yet here they are, smiling and looking like the rest of us, while surely feeling so different, so transformed.

The beauty of Ana’s work, and that of photojournalists like her, lies in its ability to open windows onto new worlds and onto the lives of people we might not otherwise know, think of, or care about.

We often fear that images objectify and reduce – indeed much of the imagery we are exposed to through social media does just that. In the right hands, however, with the right intentions and with professional diligence, photography can still teach us a great deal about the world, deepening our understanding and prompting us to compassion and empathy.

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Written by Yvan Cohen | Yvan has been a photojournalist for over 30 years. He's a co-founder of LightRocket and continues to shoot photo and video projects around Southeast Asia.

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