Photonotes

How to remove banding from a jpg?

2011-03-09T22:44:00.004+01:00

I haven't got a clue. After trying everything recommended in every PS tutorial and every forum, and still without success, a conversation from the movie "Top Secret" comes to mind.

The manager, who was supposed to free an American musician from an East-German prison, visits him in his cell and says with a mournful face:
"Nick, I have tried everything. The embassy, the consulate..."
"Don't worry, there will be a solution."
"...the President, the CIA...."
"Don't worry, there will be a solution."
"... even the Marines. But I still can't make my wife have an orgasm."
"I told you not to worry. Here's the solution", the musician says and takes a huge box from under his bunk. The inscription reads: THE MIGHTY ANAL INTRUDER.

Anyway, the bottomline is that all jpgs with banding are fucked. No remedy.

The real Hungarian S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experience

2011-03-04T23:07:00.002+01:00

2011-02-14T21:34:00.001+01:00

Thanks Rustine, that was flattering.

Good stuff on LIFE

2011-02-12T22:53:00.004+01:00

Check out the LIFE magazin series about taking great pictures. I found it today and liked it very much. Full of good tips about triangular composition, leading the eye, and how to take photographs in Hitler's bunker.
Not kidding about the latter. What might be even more interesting than war correspondents studying blood stains on the Führer's sofa is that they included some of the original captions in the gallery, where the photographer describes what's on the film rolls. A good reminder that self-administration is as much of a part of photojournalism as is taking pictures. And how hellish it must have been to do this on typewriter... but then we all know that war is hell.

Selection criteria in photo competitions

2011-02-08T18:15:00.003+01:00

My entries to the Portrait and People Contest - The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards made it into the second round (I suppose most of the participants did, because now it's time to pay for getting admitted into the further rounds - $75 in my case and I still don't know if my vanity is worth it). Since the only title I hold in photography is A.P.W.N.W.A.C. - A Photographer Who Never Wins Any Competition - the whole thing weren't worth a post. However, contrary to the majority of competitions, they were kind enough to describe their selection criteria. I find their list very useful - it's nothing new really, but aptly structured and clearly written. Enjoy.

1. What is the main thing we notice when looking at the image? (the primary visual impact of the viewer)

2. What are the main formal causes of this primary effect? It’s just the formal design or the subject? How do lines, shapes, tones, volumes, textures and patterns interact with the viewer?

3. Which was the intention of the photographer? Why would this photo be made and how would it be used?

4. Is there any creativity and innovation in the photo? What do we see as the most innovative and creative aspects?

5. Is there any meaning or any symbols underlying in the photo that give it a special meaning?

6. Finally, we analyzed the technique of the work:

6.1. Is the light (not the exposure) the right one in terms of direction and quality?

6.2. Is the camera angle the most appropriate?

6.3. Could the photo be improved by cropping it?

6.4. Does the depth of field and focus help to the visual impact?

6.5. Is the contrast the right one; should it be lowered or augmented?

6.6. Burn in or dodge parts of the image enhance the formal design of the image?

6.7. If some special technique (like Photoshop art filters, textures or color saturation) are used, does really help to the overall impact; does it add any special meaning or creative approach?

500px

2011-01-21T14:23:00.005+01:00

500px.com is a photo site balancing between usual photo-sharing and a juried selection of photographs. Members can upload whatever they wish but the photographs will soon sink into oblivion unless they become really popular. All viewers can vote pro or contra on a particular image, but it's not mandatory to vote. The more votes an image receives, the less is the weight of a vote. In other words: the more popular an image becomes, the more votes it needs to proceed and finally stay in the top selection. Popularity votes are not to anyone's taste but at least every upload has a chance. I also like the easy-going and slightly ironic attitude of the founders. For example, if you upgrade your membership you don't become "pro" or "bronze" or "full" but - "awesome". (Quite an easy way to become an awesome photographer.) Their portfolio service doesn't offer too many gimmicks but what they provide is decently designed, bug-free and comes with an interface that's a pleasure to use. On the negative side, a great part of the chat goes in Russian and the site lacks a real community because there isn't any discussion forum. But for easy photo sharing with a little competition, the site is perfect.

Anyway, most of what's popular there is escapist-beauty-glam stuff (and I don't mean this in a dehonestating way because who wouldn't want to see nice things once in a while?). I had a hard time establishing myself since my "work" is mostly documentary-oriented with just a few attempts at fine art, but at last today one of my nudes got into the pool of most popular images.It's one from a 2009 shooting with model Ewelina in Cologne. Moreover, through my 500px portfolio I received an inquiry from a German gallery about buying this one. I hope it can be realised but in any case, isn't this the kind of email all photographers hope to find in their mailbox one day? At least it gave me good impetus to work the image over, having at last a real image in mind and not just the usual 900x600 pixel thumbnails.

SajtóFotó 2010 - Hungarian Press Photo Awards 2010

2011-01-19T11:00:00.019+01:00

Sajtófotó, the annual Hungarian Press Photo Awards have always been criticized for being open to all but always won by the same insiders. It was welcomed news to hear that foreign photographers (Jan Sibik, Sam Steward, Filip Horvath from AP and Thomas Szlukovenyi from Reuters were invited this year so that the competition doesn't turn into the usual game called "I give an award to your protegé, you'll give one to mine". It was also hoped that the final selection will be more in line with the newest trends in photojournalism, especially with Sibik on the board.
The winners will be announced later today but here are a few thoughts about the third round (that's the pool from which the finalists were picked) in the portrait category, one in which I was very interested. The jury's discussions could be followed online.
I was amazed to see these to nearly similar images appear. When I saw this first I said wooow that's a good one. According to the caption, it shows a boy in front of his ruined home after his village was flooded in May. But like always, if something seems to be too good to be true then it usually is. Because here's the same boy again:

The jury quickly checked if the two shots were submitted by the same photographer (they weren't) and picked the second image. As I see it, it would have been more appropriate to reject both because one cannot shake off the feeling of the whole scene being staged and the boy coached. At least we spectators couldn't.

Then, there was the question of how much creativity is allowed in a portrait. This is a portrait of Béla Albertini, a renown photographer and university professor of photo aesthetics, photo journalism and photographic composition. As I see it, the photograph tries to convey the complexity of his character. It also makes reference to the art of photographic composition and maybe to analogue photography as well, since Albertini was a successful sociographic photographer himself in the old days. The jury didn't really know what to do with this until the Hungarian moderator asked the guest jurors (especially Stewart who is a photo editor at NPPA) if they would chose it for publication, to which they replied with a clear "no" on the grounds that it isn't a photo-journalistic portrait and was obviously post-edited. A good argument. However, in the years before we saw many heavily edited (but excellent) photographs among the winners of the portrait category, like this:

(Péter András Németh: Blind aikido master)

...or this:

(Árpád Kurucz: Thrillusionist, "Életbűvész")
So what's the way to take? I'm not saying that this picture should have been the winner but have some doubts about the jury's argumentation - are press photographers not allowed to think out of the box when it comes to conveying a subject's character and profession? After all, the guest jurors were involved to add a more forward-looking spirit in terms of photographic creativity to this competition.
Same here: the portrait of an actress. What do actresses do? They play different characters. To me, this photograph shows just that.

One of the jurors added with a laugh, "I like the woman but not the picture". Hell of an argument...

Stop press: here are the winners of the portrait category."Can't be wiped off", by Viktor Veres
There were many technically better ones than Veres' winning photograph but it's definitely an image in which expressivity, emotions and impact overrule any technical issues. One of course need to know the context: it was taken after the red mud catastrophy in October when a spill of toxic waste devastated two villages, killing several people and turning the countryside into a minor version of Chernobyl. Too bad that for anyone who doesn't know the context this could be a woman who just had tomatoes thrown at her face. Anyway, for us in Hungary this image has the potential to become a photographic icon. Well deserved.
Just as a footnote: this image had no title and no caption whatsoever in the competition, they where added at a later stage - when it was, on paper at least, not allowed. It's also interesting that it barely made it into the third round, scoring only 3 of 7 possible points (even my own photograph which was later rejected got 5 at that stage). But as said: well deserved, imo.

Hope, by Akos Stiller
This in an image that simply had to win: the Dalai Lama giving an interview to journalists in the House of Parliament. Big news for Hungary, but the news for the rest of the world is that even His Holiness has hair in his nose. At least photo critics will have a good reference when they argue that photographing faces from below and leaving reflections in eyeglasses are not necessarily flaws in a photograph. (Or maybe not?)

Fate, by M. Istvan Kerekes
"Two years old Klári lives in Transsylvania, sharing a mud house with three sisters and her parents. They almost lost everything in the floods two years ago." At least that's in short what the caption says. Very heart-wrenching and all and maybe I'm stupid but I'd expect from a finalist of a press photography competition to tell the story with the image, not only the caption. (By the way, Stiller and Kerekes have been among the finalists in 2008 and 2009 too. It's a small country, you know... and it's of course merely a coincidence that the overall winner ("grand prize for best achievement"):...

...works for the same online news portal like the jury member who stepped in at the last moment to replace a Slovakian juror who fell sick. Did I tell Hungary is a small country? Or maybe I'm being just... too Hungarian, genetically prone to see cronyism around every corner. In any case, this year didn't bing big surprizes: we have seen the same names win before, and before, and before that too.)

I can't understand why the competition is still not divided into professional and amateur categories: the few dozen "big shots" could still pat each other on the back in the pro category and let us lesser mortals compete outside their hallowed circles.

The bottomline is: if I was an aspiring young press photographer looking at the finalists for inspiration and new ways of photojournalism to explore, at least in the portrait category, I'd have a very hard time finding it. But the most painful thing about this awards is that if you a pro and win yet another time, it doesn't really matter; if you're an amateur and win, it doesn't help you either. The whole thing just doesn't look as good on a photographer's CV as it should, and probably not because Hungarian photographers lack talent or skills. Pity.

Link to the result page: http://www.sajto-foto.hu/2010/dijazottak

Opening old perspectives

2011-01-12T21:37:00.005+01:00

Soon we will all photograph in 3D and merge videos with still shots and images will be no longer saved to memory cards but directly transferred to Facebook from the camera. Or so they say. then, returning to the very basics of visual arts can be quite inspirational in our quest for better photographs.

The world is satiated with good portraits and photographers are always on the look-out for new PS filters and add-ons and post-editing methods that would make a difference between their images and the rest. But let's forget editing for once and go back to basics.
Let's take the good old perspective as a creative tool. We tend to overlook it in our photographs as something basic and self-explaining. But deepening the perspective can increase the value of an already good photograph tremendously, and one doesn't even need CS5 for it.

What made this come to my mind is a photo by Zoran Toldi.

A dilapidated door as background, bare feet on the threadbare cobblestones. All details match the portrait of a street urchin, and although the photographer shows just a small part of it it isn't too difficult to imagine the wider environment. A good shot just as it is.

Truth is, I have altered the above image slightly. Here's the original:

As I see it, the photo would be good enough without that open window. However, by that little detail the photograph looks more airy and three-dimensional, since the perspective doesn't end at the door and let's the eye wander beyond it. If I compare the two I feel as if my eyes would bounce back from the close background in the first version. It looks so much better with the background opened up - the simple effect of using a deeper perspective.

To make the best use of this detail, a strong crop comes to mind. Looking at it from closer, the arches in the background start communicating with the curves on the door and on the subject's clothes:

Thinking it through, the final result could be a close-up portrait with a strong emotional content and many little geometric details delicately connected to each other: the arches with the curves on the cap, the carving on the door with the fingers, the circles in the iron grate with the round number (5) on the sweater, the brightness of the far background to the bright collar. But what really makes the music here is the deep perspective. One only needs a good eye to see this altogether, even subconsciously, and press the shutter.

Treasure in the trash: Vivian Maier on subba.hu

2011-01-10T10:57:00.008+01:00

One might think the most fascinating about Vivian Maier's work is how she managed to take those awesome street shots. Or the fairy-tale story of discovering her work. Or the whole buzz around her in the street photographers' community.
All wrong.
The most fascinating about her is that she even made the jaw of virtual trash-collectors drop in awe. There's a dirty smelly little site on the Hungarian web called Subba.hu (subtitle: "everyday trash") which tiressly digs up the bowels of the net in its search for photographs of ugly people, videos of hilarious ways to die, in short: everything that's ridiculous and pathetic. Sometimes I check it up for inspirations.
And what do I see today? It says: "Vivian Maier: The Chicago nanny spent her free time walking the streets with her camera. More than hundred thousand negatives are waiting to be processed, her photographs are simply awesome." Now, one needs to know that if Subba were to grant the Academy Awards they'd give it to Two-girls-one-cup. Accordingly I expected some dreadful images, maybe badly processed ones or a sarcastic post to make fun out of the hype around Maier. To my surprise the site was indeed singing the praise of her work. Judged by the comments other readers were equally perplexed. Some of the comments are hilarious.

Dr. Otto Von Schnitzelpusskrankengescheitmeyer 2011.01.10. 08:17:05
This lady surely lived in a posh neighborhood. Or maybe she was just a squalor fetishist?
lebowski71 2011.01.10. 09:02:49
Never expected this stuff here :)
shitgun2 2011.01.10. 09:14:55
Phantastic shots, especially those with buildings, she has a remarkable feeling for lines and structures. I don't really like the sociographic images, they're all familiar but beautiful.
ReWriter · http://miazhogy.blog.hu/ 2011.01.10. 09:44:55
You see, people took their self-portrait in the bathroom mirror even then (3:57 in the video). But they had no site to upload them. :)
nevetőharmadik 2011.01.10. 09:56:37
Subba, are u sick? XD
Peter Blau 2011.01.10. 10:01:28
Try to take the same shots in Budapest today. Half of the subjects would file a complaint against the photographer for violating personality rights. The other half would ask for money and others would simply smash your camera :-)
Egyedi Nick (Carter) 2011.01.10. 10:03:54
@Peter Blau: Maybe she too paid for the photos :) Anyways they are good photographs indeed but there's plenty of the like on the net, just check deviant, and if you go to such a run-down neighborhood and find a good motif and have good equipment and aren't a total dud you can take similar images.
Rav Antal 2011.01.10. 10:11:39
So if she "walked the streets with her camera", where are the movies? Or did you just fuck up the translation of the word "camera"?
Wild Colonial Boy 2011.01.10. 10:14:00
"you can take similar images" Won't be easy without a time machine.
Wild Colonial Boy 2011.01.10. 10:17:00
It's correct to call a camera a camera in Hungarian, it just ain't usual.
Rav Antal 2011.01.10. 10:20:51
and how do you call a camera?
Cpt. Flint 2011.01.10. 10:20:58
The Americans are lucky, these photographs are not only artistically great but have great documentary value as well.
Cpt. Flint 2011.01.10. 10:22:26
motion picture recording camera :)
Cpt. Flint 2011.01.10. 10:41:56
@Wild Colonial Boy: yeah and still camera :o) R2D2 is a motion picture recording camera when it's recording Leia.
fizetett troll 2011.01.10. 11:12:42
@Peter Blau: how true! my classmates had to take photographs on Moszkva tér and the Gipsy women selling underwear almost trashed'em.
nemacsuka · http://nemacsuka.blog.hu/ 2011.01.10. 11:14:13
Great shots, thanks for sharing. Amazing story, the book will be worth to buy.
digitime 2011.01.10. 11:23:27
"walked the streets with her camera." in that neighborhood... she was lucky no one hit her in the head for photographing :)
bestpixel · http://www.fotoskepzo.hu/ 2011.01.10. 11:25:18
The photographs – at least those featured on the – are good indeed but only for a housewife. Also, consider that if someone takes several hundred thousand images some _must_ be good, even if the photographer is a dud. She deserves praise for her commitment anyway. Besides, these shots are much better than the "artworks" taken with cellphones and uploaded everywhere...

A truly dismal standard of reporting

2011-01-07T00:26:00.012+01:00

Hungary and the UK are on the brink of war, at least in the media after the Economist illustrated one article with a not-so-flattering photograph of Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán. This prompted HírTV, a pro-government news channel, to accuse the Economist of editing the picture such way as to make Mr Orbán, not very popular in Western Liberal press, appear like the devil himself. (Ironically, the photograph was taken by a Hungarian PJ and rather good allround photographer, Ferenc Isza on behalf of AFP. Not a surprise he wasn't available for comment.) The Economist, having a taste for weird humour like jokes about "Hungary" sounding similar to "hungry", added the following caption: "Orban's coming for you".

Scary, huh?

Now, HírTV made an amateurish attempt at proving that the image was strongly manipulated. They asked a graphic artist to explain how the image was manipulated who presented it - on a photograph of cloudy sky of all things, with a method that looked like auto levels applied on a selection layer. The point was that applying lots of contrast can make an image look gloomy and foreboding, and the same can be done with a portrait. This was allegedly done with Mr Orban's image.

On a technical side it was a shot in the knee as it proved nothing and made HírTV look like idiots. However, they did have a point because the photo was indeed manipulated just not in the way they presented. So far so bad but Mr Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief (whom in exchange for his paper's most funny puns about Hungary I shall call Mr Nippletrait hereafter) published a blunt editor's note in their blog dealing with Eastern Europe. A few jewels: "I write to reject a completely unfounded and defamatory allegation you broadcast yesterday... Indeed, as in every magazine, all our pictures are colour-corrected for print production. We also cropped this picture to fit the column size... But the piece alleges that we went beyond this routine process to change the picture content fundamentally.... it is obvious that there is no manipulation... your piece reflected a dismal standard of reporting."

To prove they did nothing wrong the Economist published the original AFP shot and the cropped illustration side by side:

Alas, this was the point where Mr Nippletrait too made a fool out of himself and his paper.

First, anyone with just a little knowledge of photography knows that such cropping in a portrait gives more emphasize to the subject. Whatever he's doing will be more accentuated. Here the face, captured in a stern and not very flattering expression, becomes more predominant just by the tight crop. Moreover, the crop made the green parts of the Hungarian flag disappear and the resulting red-white-black colors might make one think of the Nazi , just in the spirit of an article trying to make Orbán appear as a new Hitler - but OK, maybe that's too much of a conteo.

Second, adjusting skin tones and WB on the face and hair resulted in much harsher facial features and I bet they even pushed the contrasts to achieve this. The result is an even more stern expression that could be easily interpreted as threatening, devilish, evil (you name it) and by adding the punchy caption the editors made sure that even the dumbest of readers understand: here's the bad guy, now hate him for two minutes.

Third (and this is the point where Mr Nippletrait's arguments go fatally wrong): even if we dismiss the above as nitpicking, fact is that with the same effort a less negative photograph could have been chosen. I wanted to upload a gif animation of the whole moment when the picture was taken but screwed it, anyway here's the next frame just a second after the angry look:

Uh-oh... here Mr Orban doesn't look like the devil and that wouldn't fit into the preconception of the Economist's "objective and fair" (cough) article, now would it?

That's the painful point. How can Mr Nippletrait be so naive to presume that readers aren't able to think a step further, and be easily convinced that because they didn't add another nose or Hitler moustache or devil's horns, there was no manipulation here? Picking this particular image alone was manipulation, and an even worse manipulation than that of - namely, a blatant emotional manipulation of the readers themselves. One doesn't need Photoshop to lie with a photograph, a pair of scissors and a good crop will do the job:

Here on the left we see the Al-Jazeera, in the middle the (uhm, that's supposed to be the unbiased fact-based media but none comes to mind) and to the right the FOXNews version of the same event, all captured within a single frame.

OK - all the press does adjust its illustrations to the story it wants to tell (I wish I could take a portrait of Mr Nippletrait picking his nose and adding a caption like "nothing good will come out from there" if for any reason I wanted to show him as an ugly person), but doing that and then claiming that they did nothing wrong is as ridiculous as HírTV's amateurish communication of the matter. As I see it, Mr Nippletrait's lecture about good journalism is an overdose of hypocrysis. Seen it before in the Economist, though... a few years back they published a long article in favour of the Turkish EU accession, illustrated with the photo of a Koran school and a caption "Nothing to be afraid of." Define demagogy, eh?
Just for fairness' sake I admit that their below illustration with Mr Orban looking down at the articles bashing him is totally hilarious:

Anyway, in my opinion we in Eastern Europe still make the mistake of taking Western media too seriously, as if it wouldn't be the same old manipulative instrument of those with power it always was. Ironically, this mess between HírTV and the Economist is just an example how our naivety fools us; after all, the whole thing is just another occasion to see how the press tries to manipulate us. The press manipulates, bankers are greedy, guinea pigs are not particularly bright. Did I tell something new?

Fallen legions

2011-01-04T00:10:00.007+01:00

They used to scalp Barbarian women to sell their blond hair for wigs, not to mention their tendency "to ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, and call it empire; and where they made a desert, to call it peace", but I can't help myself to feel kind of a sympathy to the Roman Empire. And there was a caesar called Maximian who, had he been just a little more successful, could have changed the course of history; but he failed, and his image shows just that: a failed man, seeing his world collapse around him.

I always loved this image with all the world-weariness written on his face and for some time entertained the idea to make a similar self-portrait just for my own fun. With the peace of Christmas holidays descending on us I took the time to make it. Ironically, there's a poem titled "With fallen legions" by Hungarian poet Árpád Tóth, in which an aging man, still longing for love but neglected by young and desirable women, compares himself to an emperor still ready for new conquests but having only "fallen legions", a metaphor for being powerless. Not in the sexual way of meaning; at least to me, still far from being powerless, it's about understanding much but not being able to change anything, going far beyond love. And of course seeing a new seed of beauty growing which my generation will never reap. Isn't this ironic: long ago I knew their mothers in their full beauty, and now I see their daughters blossoming? Anyway, the point is that I didn't want to hire professional models, I wanted to have two under-age beauties to emphasize the difference between their fresh faces and my own worn-out look.

So entered Rebeca and Reka, with reflective shields replacing the scutum of Maximian's bodyguards. Originally I wanted to do it with Edd Carlile but he was away, and I still had enough photographic legions to attempt it on my own; in any case, I counted on his portrait expertise but didn't want to do it his way. I admire him but don't want to imitate him. In any case he had made a much better emperor than me.
After the emperor shots I took a few beauty shots of them, which were nothing particular but good exercise.

I screwed some of Reka's pics though by over-stretching de 5D's flash syncron speed but somehow I like those images anyway.

It was a tad difficult with Reka. She will grow into something wild, with more explicit sexuality than usual, and I didn't consider it right to push the shooting into that direction. I wish she had worn a torn leather jacket with sharp metal rivets. Or just smash a window. She rocks, and she definitely should rock. In the good, old-fashioned way. Maybe next time.

It was easier with Rebeca. Attending a ballet school and prepared for a life on the stage, she was a pleasure to instruct. And I love working with professional ballerinas. Bodies innocent and graceful from far away, but lethal terminators from close enough.

We had some problems in the beginning because the shooting started with me slipping & tearing down the black background fabric. (You know, a good photographer shows to the models what pose he wants them to assume.) I told Rebeca, "jump up and do the splits" which she happily did, only to prove the studio too small.

So, there we stood with Reka (a quite bendy model herself) looking with dropping jaws at Rebeca who seemingly without any efforts assumed the most self-torturing poses, and even when I told her "OK, nice, but now do it again so that I can capture it and don't forget to shake your hair" she did it without any moaning.

Anyway, I'm not so satisfied with this set; there were lots of props we didn't use, Reka got stuck in a not-so-fitting innocence, and the black background, and my own stupidity not to use the stroboscope mode of the 580EXII for the ballet shots - but it was great fun at least. Even though I, the old emperor, couldn't shake off a little envy for the young lucky centurions who might be legally in love with these two beauties.
But in all honesty, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

The end of the world as I know it

2010-12-22T01:10:00.002+01:00

It has nothing to do with photography but I stumbled upon a comment to a blog which made me reconsider everything I knew about the world.

"Indiana Jones could die in the 5th part. A character's popularity can even grow after his death. Think about Jesus and Bobba Fett etc."

I've seen many things in my life but never expected to read Jesus and Bobba Fett in one and the same sentence, and in such a colloquial and natural way. It's not as if I were religious. It's the absurdity that made my shout OMG and slap my forehead. Obviously I'm getting too old for this world.

Still waiting to wake up from this. Or falling asleep would be even better.

2010-12-21T22:30:00.003+01:00

The more I know about people, the more I prefer landscape photography.
Nah, just kidding. But sounds good anyway.

Dilemma

2010-12-15T01:05:00.002+01:00

Which one?

It's always the question...

The most iconic photographers?

2010-11-10T16:41:00.005+01:00

CNN's readers can vote for the most iconic photographer, with 20 great ones to choose from. The page is a bit bugged, which I realised when the caption belonging to Avedon appeared under Lawrence Beitler's photograph but apart from this grotesque trick by the web devil it's a great initiative.

Now... one thing I could never understand - or rather accept - is how much photographic history is centered around American photographers. OK, why being surprised when out of the 20 candidates 15 are American in a CNN feature (or 16 if we count cosmopolitan Capa too), but it's a bit like voting for the most iconic buildings of the world and 16 of 20 candidates were US landmarks. Where are the Japanese, Russian, British ? Typing all this I realise that the CNN audience is probably more acquainted with Weegee, Weston & Co and less so with Kertész or Saudek, just to mention two East Europeans... or so I guess.

Another interesting thing is that the featured German photographers - Gursky and the Bechers - are more on the abstract side while the others represent people photography, from PJ to fashion and documentary, making me think if the US audience had a problem understanding the visual language of non-American people photography. But they obviously can cope with Cartier-Bresson and Capa, so the explanation has probably more to do with the personal taste of the guys who compiled the list and there can't be any dispute over such subjective choices.

Anyway, it's clear that the US had the greatest magazines, the galleries with the best marketing and of course the most photographers, so it's not surprising that photographic history is often understood as the history of American photography.

Who would be my choice? I would be hard pressed to pick the 5 most iconic names, but in photojournalism it would be Weegee - he invented the genre after all and his photographs are as fresh now as they were in his time. HCB... well, some friends might kill me for such blasphemy but I believe his most iconic shots like this were staged. Joe Rosenthal and Capa ditto (sorry, I don't believe the loyalist's death was real - and even worse, I dare say it doesn't matter). I truly couldn't make a choice. It's after all the photographers one has to rank and not the photographs. If I valued cheerful Capa over aristocratic HCB or the compassionate Dorothea Lange over vulture-like Weegee, would that make any sense? How can you compare the Tienanmen shot (Stuart Franklin) with a fashion photograph (Man Ray) anyway?

Last but not least - how could any contest be taken seriously which doesn't feature Ken Rockwell?... :)

A few pics from Rajasthan

2010-10-30T14:35:00.011+02:00

Rajasthan is is great. First, it has the mood.

Second, it has mind-blowing colors.

And then it has all those incredible faces... so often seen in other photographs. Already back in 1999, when I presented my first Indian portfolio to Tamás Féner, a living legend among Hungarian photojournalists (he is so old-school that he hasn't even a webpage, but would be nonetheless on pair with the greatest ones had he not been born in Hungary) and I'll never forget the resignation in his voice: "oh yes, India, Pushkar camel fair and stuff like that, do you know how how many million photos we've already seen of that?". Even though my pictures at that time had nothing to do with Pushkar or Rajasthan, he had a point - Rajasthan is a people photographer's paradise and who could resist the temptation? I couldn't. To realize that I can't photograph every smart face and pretty peasant girl was a hard reckoning, but then at least I tried...

In most situations a polaroid, some charm and loads of humour suffice to create an open and honest relation between me and my subjects which is prerequisit to every good portrait. Sadly, it was in Rajasthan that I had my first and only conflict with people over taking their photographs. I noticed the beauty of this scene from the car - three women walking in the fields in their bright dresses under the overcast sky.

I let Soni pull over, ran up to them and took this shot, and seeing that it's not that remarkable I already wanted to return to the car, when the woman on the left noticed me. She came to me and asked for money. I hate giving them money, my polaroid was in the car and didn't want to pay them anyway because I didn't like the photo and took it from far away, without their faces visible. The woman got angry and shouted, "paisa, paisa" meaning "money, money". I calmly said, no. She then raised her hack (or is it called a hoe?) and threatened to trash me, to which I equally raised my Gitzo monopod and there we stood in a Rajasthani stalemate: she was ready to trash down on me with that hack and I assuming the same pose with the monopod. There was nothing funny in this situation but I almost laughed since the scene reminded me to a kendo fight. Not seeking trouble, I slowly moved backwards until she turned away.

Neither could I resist the temptation when we visited the Sham dunes (which should be rather called "scam" or "shame", for it's a tourist circus)...

... and all those desert gypsy girls pestered me to have their photo taken for five, ten, twenty dollars - depending on how they assessed my finances by my look. I admit I booked a model for five, so to say, with her daddy doing me the extra favor of standing in the background on a camel, just to experience how low one can get in photography... although probably the lowest thing one could do were to show such a photograph anywhere else than in a photoblog.

A few pics from Almora

2010-10-19T22:07:00.008+02:00

One must love Almora. Easier to discover than Simla, more charming than Mussoorie and definitely less crowded than Mussoorie, it seems to be the most liveable of the hill stations I know. It's as relaxed as an Indian town can be and the pedestrians-only bazaar still has some old houses with delicate woodcarvings on their facade. It was the only place where I got even remotely close to street photography in India.

Two days later, already in Rajasthan, we were having a coffee&cigarette break in a dhaba when Soni looked up from his newspaper and said, "very bad rain in Almora, road we came is blocked now, dozen people dead". We were on our way to Jaisalmer and upon hearing this, I started having serious concerns about the safety of that town. Wherever we went, disaster followed. I actually wanted to spend one or two more days in Almora but heavy rains were exactly what I was afraid of and voila, it happened. The only thing worse than leaving a good place in the anticipation of something bad is to be eventually proven right.

Hello Maharishi

2010-09-27T00:11:00.001+02:00

Let's build a new site (or die trying) - update

2010-09-26T00:51:00.005+02:00

An old friend stumbled upon my post written after the meltdown at 1X and asked if there's any news. Maybe it's about time to give an up-date of the situation, just for the record.

First, when the new .co domains were made available in July-August I obtained lots of catchy domain names for the future site. My personal favorites are: www.ladygagahasadick.net, www.1x-longerbiggeruncutversion.co and www.bestguineapigphotosoftheworld.org.
Or maybe it will be something more trivial like photographers.co, silverpixel.co, worldimages.co, thephotobank.co, photospace.co, realphoto.co or just vision.co - who knows :)

Or maybe it will be something totally different, because apart from my own project (the developers are in the demo phase) other friends are also building something big; I'm not sure if they liked their name displayed at this stage, hence I prefer not to tell. (As a matter of fact: because almost anyone involved in either project is still on 1X I really better keep my mouth shut). I absolutely loved their demo version but in the end it depends on the overall concept; I hope they will not narrow down the scope of their site to street photography. It's the queen of non-conceptual photographic arts but only for the chosen few, and nobody designing a site wants to have few members.

Bottomline: the project is in its Rubber Duck phase, looking smooth and quiet on the surface but paddling like the devil underneath...

Dilemma

2010-09-26T00:36:00.002+02:00

Message from Flickr: "You've been invited to add this photo to the group Kids' Asylum - Eradicate SOCIAL Poverty."
I hardly think I will.
Nice group, nice shots, nice kids. I wonder how many of them are really poor by their own standards. This girl wasn't, by Indian standards anyway. Neither is this shot about poverty. Even if it were, I guess she wouldn't like the idea of becoming a face of poverty.

Likewise, Zoltan Huszti once took a decent portrait of me. I wouldn't like him to add it to the group "Self-righteous arrogant bastards" if such a group existed on Flickr.

Exorcism in India

2010-09-22T23:05:00.012+02:00

"Balaji temple at Mehandipur in Rajasthan is very Powerful place. It is believed that the deity in this temple has divine power to cure a person possessed with evil spirit. Hundreds of 'Sankatwalas', as the possessed people are refereed to in local lingo, throng to the temple everyday to offer prayers and have 'darshan'. The temple has also become a home and the last respite for the victims. The 'Mahant' of the temple, Shri Kishor Puri Ji, prescribes the treatment. It can include reading holy texts, following a strict vegetarian and simple diet, and even afflicts physical pain to one's body. One can witness people going through various physical therapies like keeping heavy stones on their body , on arms, legs and chest , to ease their pain. There are others who inhale the smoke that fumes out of the sweet Patasa's kept on smoldering cowpats. The ones with serious case of spirit possession, who tends to get violent, are even shackled in chains within the temple premises. This may appear a bit anachronistic at the first glance, but thousands of people are believed to have been cured in this way. Festival time (Holi, Hanuman Jayanti and Dusshera etc) are regarded as the most auspicious time to emancipate from the evil spirit" - says the website. (It warns: "Ladies, insane and evil spirited person must be accompanied by a attendant", among else).

Dausa itself could compete for the title of dirtiest town in Rajasthan because the stench and filth, in which stray pigs seemed to be more in their natural habitat than the schoolgirls with their tidy blue-white school uniform, was overwhelming.

Photography is prohibited inside the temple but curiosity always prevails, and the demon inside my head told me to photograph. I had my camera with the 17-40/4 hanging from my neck on its strap, attached a release cord and hid the release button in my pocket. Amidst all the noise and chanting no one could hear the clicking of the shutter. ISO @1600, F=11 and go.

The possessed patiently wait for treatment in the temple's courtyard...

...while the devotees throng inside through a narrow corridor.

Inside one can see the sankatwallahs in their various stages of possession; some just sitting and waiting as if on a railway station, others lurching on the marble floor in the state of total despair.

I found a video on YouTube that catches the temple atmosphere very well, taken by an Argentinian traveler. The creepy part starts at 4.10.

The main altar.

I don't believe in demons but the more I live, the less I know. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Beauty calls

2010-09-20T23:59:00.008+02:00

On just another rainy day we were driving down from Almora when Soni suddenly said, oh my GOD. Another landslide?, I replied sleepily. But no: Soni pointed to a roadside restaurant with a veranda under which two gorgeous girls took shelter from the rain.
They turned out to be starlets with all their entourage, managers stylists cameramen and all, waiting for the rain to stop so that they could continue shooting a movie for TV (or a promotion ad for the region of Kumaon, translation wasn't clear). The situation was a little awkward because the whole entourage was giggling and talking about me, that was obvious, while I was desperately looking for a joke or something else to break the ice. The starlets spoke only minimal English. I asked them, so you are actors? Yes. Do you sing in the movies? Sometimes. I know a song about the rain, do you want to hear it? (Giggle.) I took a deep breath and started to sing Singing in the rain, horribly out of tune and all but the girls were laughing and I asked the girls with the most innocent face possible, do you mind if I photograph you? They didn't.

This is Pooja Arya:

...and Richa Parcha.

Richa and Pooja.

There was great chemistry between the models...

...and I wished there would be less giggling assistants around us, less white SUVs reflected in the black glass window behind the girls and less rain outside of the tiny veranda. It's anyone's guess how it would have ended - the girls were really getting hot - but then their managers, until then drinking busily tea at the far table, pooped the party. I had to explain to them why I take these photographs, who I am and all. There were two of them like playing good cop bad cop, the bad one insisting I delete all photos and the good one willing to hear me out. In the end both insisted I delete the photos which I didn't have the slightest inclination to do. Why on earth? They were decent enough for the circumstances and I had no bad intentions with them anyway. I looked at Soni with a face that said let's get the fuck out of here and off we went on our long way to Jaipur.
By the way, there were Richa's and Pooja's male colleagues too; handsome and very macho in their own way but maybe I can be forgiven if I didn't make them the protagonists of that impromptu shooting.

Abandoned lights

2010-09-18T13:39:00.007+02:00

No amount of megapixels will ever take the place of a T-Max or Tri-X but Kodak's infrared film, HIE, has become hopelessly obsolete. Digital IR images are simply better in all terms. One advantage it still has, though. With a rangefinder camera (especially with external viewfinder) it is pure joy to use: unlike SLRs, the photographer can see the motif because the filter doesn't block the view. I had once experimented with a HIE + Voigtlander Bessa L (and T) combo using 15 and 25mm lenses and was quite happy with the results. This time I had hoped to capture the mood of the abandoned Maharishi ashram in Rishikesh on infrared but the results were rather disappointing.

Trying to save the day I converted a few digital images into IR lookalikes. It's worth comparing this with the film shot above:

I don't know... maybe I should stick to the originals.

To be continued.

Saints and beauties

2010-09-15T10:45:00.024+02:00

Thanks to the gods for Rishikesh. On a more human scale than Haridwar, much less filthy and noxious than Varanasi. And portrait paradise with all kinds of people and races flocking to the shores of the Ganga river.
Blossoms from India, only for you.

Crossing Laxman (read Lakshman) Jhula, the pedestrian bridge connecting the to sides of Rishikesh across the Ganga, is a feeling only Kipling could describe like he did with the Grand Trunk Road in Kim. A never ceasing stream of life across the eternal river of gods.
I had fond memories of Rishikesh. Probably it's the refreshing proximity of the mighty river, combined with a spirit of transcendency emanating from all the temples and ashrams, that makes people be kind, relaxed and openhearted. Back in 1999, photographing people was a real pleasure. Walking through the streets, I soon felt that this time will not be different.
It was a good start to meet little Risal. Closing on...

...baby pleeeeease don't look at the flash, it's not switched on anyway....

...getting better, now we have a child shot with large aperture, nice but not quite the real thing...

...and then Risal, who got either fed up from modelling or wanted to tell me a thing or two about life, made a suprising gesture...

...and as soon as I lowered the camera I realised: my trip was not for nothing. I love that last shot. Thanks Risal!

And there was Neha who flirted shamelessly with my camera, doing things with a slice of fruit that I photographed but wouldn't dare publish. In other words, she performed a perfect imitation of oral sex. Not the first time it happened. Last year in Manali another girl made an even lewder performance - with a lollipop, of all things. Either those little brats are too innocent to realise what they're doing or there's more to them that meets the eye. I'd say it's the first because I heard several local guys complaining about Indian women not really being fond of oral sex. All the more likely because in old times even maharadjas had to turn to servant girls or dancers for a blow job, because no self-respecting concubine or wife would do it. Or so I read somewhere. Anyway, here's a decent one.

Such a sweet child nonetheless. Full of life, charm and wit. I hope she'll not spend her whole life selling trinkets for tourists on the street.

First evening it rained heavily. I escaped into an archway where a few old sadhus were selling souvenirs and religious stuff. We shared some cigarettes and to bid my time until the rain stopped, I tried to photograph them despite the less than ideal light conditions.

And there was Paddy, running a little tourist agency. He offered me a seat under the fan; it was gaspingly hot and humid. I told him: "Listen buddy, I'm not gay and have a wife and all and when I get back home she'll look at my photos and say, 'so many photographs of pretty girls! That's why you went to India you prick!' and she'll divorce me, so from time to time I must take photos of handsome men too. Please help me. Do you mind if I take your photograph?" He didn't.

But attractive men were rare while the town was full of camera-happy girls. There was Madhuri, I believe she came from Mumbai, combing her hair after a bath in the river and not minding at all being photographed.

Actually this was on the second day but doesn't matter. I visited the former Maharishi ashram (known for the Beatles, unfairly perhaps because the ashram existed for about 40 years and the Beatles only spent 5-6 weeks there) but this is another story. Again, the little streets and pilgrim hostels (meaning any covered place) proved to be a portrait bonanza.

It was in such a flee-infested, filthy little place where I met Victor and Clemence (or Desire, the introduction wasn't clear) from Paris, a couple of rare beauty.

And there was the blind singer. I saw him in 1999 already, sitting close to the bridge. He was there still, on the same spot in the same robe (such bright yellow that it drove my 5D's white balance mad), singing the same song. Eternal.

For some reason I was very happy to see him again. While I was looking at him, dealing with my memories, he stood up and tried to make his way through the mass flowing from the bridge; I took his hand and guided him through, making way for him through all the people. Paid his tea, too.

Several times I decided to go return to my hotel and every time I turned back. I was tired, dirty and soaking of sweat but Rishikesh didn't let me go. People got used to my presence after a while and it was exhilarating to become part of this town if even for just one afternoon.

Mussoorie masala

2010-09-13T23:35:00.010+02:00

"Set on a horse-shoe shaped ridge, nearly 7000 feet up in the Himalayan foothills, Mussoorie is a place - I decided after only twenty minutes - where I would happily spend the rest of my life" - says Peter Hopkirk, one of my favorite writers, but he obviously didn't visit the hill station in the rainy season. When I first saw it in 1999 I could hardly agree more with him, though. To my relief Hotel Broadway, one of the best places a traveller could hope for in India, is still standing.

Moreover, I was lucky enough to stay in exactly the same room where I stayed in 1999. That's how it was then:

...and now.

Rain and fog, fog and rain. And a woodpecker for company. It was a wise decision to take the 75-300 IS tele with me.

I loved that hotel. Can't get more cozy than that.

Mussoorie is famous for its boarding schools. Certainly no place for rebellious kids.

I didn't take much photos in Mussoorie. This is a masala post - meaning, here I mix photos taken in the town and around (Dehra Dun, actually). Masala means a mixture of spices. Mixture of photos, then.
I met a swami, a holy man, whom I asked to pray for an ill friend.

And then there were these little sisters, heavily made up for a visit in a temple.

I had big plans for Mussoorie - there is a very nice old British cemetery (if one can call a cemetery "nice") I wanted to photograph on infrared film but weather didn't make this possible.

A lovely town, though. Or once it was.

But there is a great bookstore.

And people, who let me take their photograph in exchange for an almost full box of Gold Flake cigarettes.

Talking about spice and masala... the best way to survive India with a healthy stomach is to eat at roadside restaurants. And the safest and most reliable food is chowmein, an Oriental noodle dish, as delicious as easy to prepare.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound fresh egg noodles/spaghetti
1 onion
1 can bamboo shoots
1-2 eggs (hardboiled)
4-5 cabbage leafs
2 slices ginger
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar (rice vinegar if available)
2 tablespoons oil for stir-frying
2 tablespoons curry powder

Prepare the noodles (spaghetti, if no Chinese available) al dente. Boil and slice the eggs. Slice and fry the onion in a wok. Add the curry powder (Madras, if available) to the onions. Fry for a minute. Add the noodles. Stir and fry on low flame until noodles become golden brown. Slice the cabbage into tiny pieces and add to the noodles. Stir them thoroughly. Add ginger, vinegar and soy sauce. Put in a CD of Luciano Pavarotti. After a song, add the bamboo shots and the sliced eggs. Stir on. At the end, add a little sugar and stir up well. Ready. Serve with hot Thai/Chinese sauces and/or soya sauce.
You can add sliced tomatoes when ready, or minced meat or chicken (at the point when the onion comes in and fry), there are more ways to prepare chowmein than there are dhabas in India. The recipe here is a "common denominator" of all the dhabas where I had chowmein. I survived and so will you if you try.

Pinewood and deodar

2010-09-10T14:06:00.012+02:00

After Mussoorie came Rishikesh and after that Almora, but I skip them for now because since autumn arrived to Belgium I long for two things: the bright colors of Rajasthan and even more, the majestic forests of the Himalayas. I saw a postcard of the Jageshwar temple in 1999, when I was following the Char Dham yatra (Badrinath, Kedarnath, Ganotri, Yamunotri) and even so, with my mind fully saturated with the mountains and shrines, even by a faded little photograph, I felt attracted to that beautiful place and wanted to see it ever since. This year I did, and the shrines Jageshwar, set amidst a heavenly forest where the smell of pinewood and deodar lingered in the air like parfume, impressed me deeply with their tranquility and serene beauty. Jageshwar was a trap - it called me for years, and now it will call me back for even more years to come.
As Ruskin Bond writes: "The last puff of the day wind brought from the unseen villages, the scent of damp wood smoke, hot cakes, dipping underneath and rotting pinecones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas and if once it creeps into the blood of man, that man will at last forget all else, return to the hills to die."

Too many targets

2010-09-08T14:12:00.023+02:00

There is a shortcut through the wilderness between Rampur and the Dehra Dun region, which we took early next morning.

This day led us again through misty, high-altitude jungle and I still remember it as probably the most beautiful day of the whole trip.

It is said, every photo should have a little red in it...

...or at least a creek with long exposure.

I loved that jungle.

And the people in the villages.

I found people in Himachal very beautiful. They are more mixed, more diversified there than in Ladakh, some of them with very special and delicate features, especially the girls. Whenever we saw a good-looking girl on the road we stopped and I got out to photograph her, with Soni occasionally translating; he enjoyed this - sorry to say so - model-hunting and after a while we just cried "target at one o'clock" whenever a promising girl showed up. Sadna, shown in the image below, was spotted by me but a few days later it was Soni who found the really big opportunity.

I was amazed by her soft, almost Caucasian features; she was very kind too, even if a little camera-shy.

And there was Anna, too. She liked to pose but her brother was close by. He was carrying a sledgehammer and didn't like my camera at all, no matter my politeness and the two polaroids I gave them. The feeling was mutual as I didn't like his sledgehammer. Anna, too, could easily pass for a European.

In general, I prefer photograph girls to boys because they tend to be smarter, more camera-happy and last not least more pleasing to look at. (In exchange, boys get more beautiful as they get older. They get wise, with a tough life written all over their face. On the other hand, life in the Himalayas takes its toll on female beauty very soon.) Boys usually started doing crazy antics whenever I wanted to photograph them but they weren't even remotely funny.

This was just another situation with boys ruining a photograph with their grimaces. However... look at that girl in the background, with the white ribbons in her hair. She attracted me already through the viewfinder. Her name was Madhu. First laughing and cheerful...

...but when I singled her out she became serious and made a stern face that she kept no matter how I tried to make her change her expression.

I pretty much liked her but in hindsight I realize that the real hero of the day was Sonia - fun, full of energy and immensely cute.

Madhu, Sonia and Sabina with the obligatory polaroid. Sonia obviously loves being in the middle of things.

As we continued, there was a waterfall above the road and Soni used the opportunity to take a free shower.

Meanwhile, an open jeep came along; the passengers got out and skirted the waterfall, giving me the chance to photograph one of them.

Uttaranchal's roads are among the worst in India and it was indeed here that we got stuck in the mud - first time after driving several thousand kilometers in the Himalayas. Nothing serious though.

We even met an old Muslim, doing his evening prayers on the roadside. At first he was a little grumpy but then he didn't really seem to mind it, though.

It was a tiring and long drive but the scenery was always great.

Of course, our way to Mussoorie would have been much shorter if I don't ask Soni every five minutes to stop for a photo break.

Her name was Lalita. My personal favorite.

And in the end, Mussoorie and dinner - at last.

Lost in translation

2010-09-06T11:11:00.025+02:00

It came to my mind to turn east towards Spiti instead of enjoying the pleasures of Rohtang Pass one more time; however, when trying to get information on the road conditions I was told that that the Spiti road is blocked on three spots, another source said four and yet another told me about two big landslides. If I take the statistic median of these 9 alleged landslides, that makes 4,5. Instead of verifying the numbers we made our way early next morning to Manali, hoping to see Spiti and Chandratal Lake on another trip.

Our little convoy mae good progress and when we arrived to the first northern slopes leading up to Rohtang, weather improved a little bit. We stopped for having our passports checked and coffee at Gramphu where I took a few portraits; and this s a good time to apologise for the photos in this post because I screwed up something while converting them from RAW and hence they look like washed out. In general, I have a problem optimising my photos since I purchased my new screen. in PS and RAW Shooter they look perfect but much less so on the web.

At last we saw blue sky. Time for a roadside breakfast. By the way... I was suprised that my compact Panasonic Lumix LX3, used at an amateurish P setting with 1 stop underexposure, had much less difficulties in dealing with such bright sky-dark valley situations than the EOS 5D (the 5DMkII I used last year wasn't better at all).
Canon version, ISO 50, 1/100, f=7 + Cokin ND4 NG:

Lumix version, ISO 80, 1/1000, f=4,5:

Life is great, Dominique said, and I couldn't agree with him more.

I also took a few shots of Mobsingh, Soni's fellow-driver from Rajasthan 4WD. Being a Rajput, a people famous for their martial past and pride, he was a very different character from Mr Soni. To put it this way: in the client-driver relationship he obviously meant harder business for the client. His photos didn't work out very well until I told him he's looking in the pictures like a drunk Shahrukh Khan. Oh dear, did he laugh.

Rohtang was covered in mist and fog and rain again but descending was much easier business than toiling up on the muddy road (if it can be called a road at all).

Misty landscapes do have their poetry too...

...and are extremely useful for the digital photographer because one can clearly see when it's time for sensor cleaning :)

We even saw a Bollywood movie in the making. Actually it was a scene of a Punjabi soap opera showing the hero and the heroine driving around. Such bad luck. I had better enjoyed some action movie with people blowing up things or at least the compulsory wet sari dance, but then one can't have everything.

Arriving in Manali with aching bones, tired and hungry the best thing to do was to st down on the hotel veranda with a pot of tea and think about a new itinerary.

The Lokotars invited me for dinner at Manali's best, the Mount View. At last some food without dhal and spicy gravy. While we bid our time in the crowded restaurant, the local Tibetan community held a memorial service for the victims of the flashflood in Leh; it was quite touching with a long line of Tibetan women lined up with candles, singing a slow and sad song of which I only understood "om mani padme hum", with a huge crowd of locals and tourists on the other side, some of them lighting candles but wth the majority takng photos and movies; I wonder what the Tibetans were thinking of all this. It was all the more weird because I watched the scene and lit a candle too but my mind was rather occupied with the food inside the restaurant than compassion. I have to admit that. A strange mix of emotions - the sad Tibetans and the tourists, both foreigners and Indians, for whom this was nothing but just another occasion to take photos, as the flashes were sometimes brighter than all the candles.

(The boy in the clip is Timothy Lokotar.)

Next day we separated from our travel companions and headed south to the Kullu Valley, Jalori Pass and Rampur, backtracking the route we had taken last year. At last there was no rain and driving through the lush, green forests of Kullu along the Beas river was pure pleasure.

Again, a 5D vs LX3 match:

It was shortly from the top of the Jalori Pass (a steep ride but a piece of cake compared to the Rohtang) that I saw a girl carrying firewood. I asked Soni to stop the car, ran after her and prayed she's not camera-shy.

She wasn't. Her name was Usha (giving this name a new meaning and making us forget about her arrogant counterpart from Kinnaur) and she was a very kind person. To my surprise, she suddenly asked me in nearly impeccable English and a voice that was sweet, innocent and prematurely sexy at the same time:

"Why do you take photographs of me?"

Oh dear, that's a good question I thought. Usually I reply: I take your photo, upload it to the internet, my buddies tell me it's nice and this makes me feel good. I could have told her the truth, too: I take it as a trophy for my own narcissistic pleasure. Or: maybe one day I'll publish a book about your beautiful hills and people and you will be in it. I was prepared, however, because I've been asking myself the same question for a while and had a honest answer ready.

"Dear Usha, you are a khub surat larkhi, bahut sunder indeed! But who will see your beauty? Your family, your friends... I take your photo and hope that many, many people will see how beautiful you are, and be happy to see you, just like I am happy now."

She looked at me with a hint of skepticism...

...and then reached into her pocket from where she took a battered English-Hindi dictionary, looked into it and replied:

"I am sorry, I don't speak your language."

"Nevermind, Usha, nevermind", I murmured and took a polaroid shot which she gladly accepted. I felt a sudden sadness as I walked back to the car, waving good-bye to Usha who waved back at me with a smile until she disappeared in the woods.

Last year, I could admire the great Himalayan Range from the top of Jalori Pass (about 3600 meters) but this year it was foggy and cloudy; a perfect time to have tea in Mr Dollodrum's dhaba. When not serving tea, he is the pujari (resident priest) of the Hadimba Temple atop the pass.

Our ascent led us through dense, misty jungle where it was obligatory to take long-exposure waterfall shots, more for the pleasure of enjoying the fresh air and quiet than photographic creativity.

Early evening we passed through Ani, where we met the israeli couple last year. This time we only stopped for ... who first enjoyed being photographed...

...but since light condtions were tricky - the usual dark valley-empty sky combo, dark-skinned model and all this at dusk - I took many photographs with high ISO, then low ISO+flash, filter on, filter off and she got hopelessly bored.

Anyway, Usha had already made my day as far as photography and memorable encounters are concerned; and after 12 hours of driving, at last we made it to Rampur and the Sutlej valley.

A most beautiful soul

2010-09-03T17:45:00.008+02:00

Keylong is buzzing with activity. There's a lively red-light district, famous for its pole-dancers imported all the way from Pattaya, a bar selling 247 different kinds of beer, and a famous wellness spa with hammam, sauna and a heated swimming pool around a floating cocktail bar.
At least in my wet dreams. Actually there's nothing to do in Keylong except a hike to the 800 years old Khardang gompa (monastery) across the river. The way to the gompa is long but the views over the valley are superb.
On the way up we passed a camp of road workers from Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The women happily flirted with the camera and their children performed a show of incredible misbehavior.

It was here that Soni, the always cheerful, polite and tactful Soni almost got us beaten up. When he asked one of the women (the colorful lady wielding the hammer on the image above) chalo Jodhpur? the mood suddenly froze and the women were not friendly anymore. As a matter of fact, they became angry.
"What happened, Mr Soni?"
"I asked lady if she wants come to Jodhpur."
"I guess she didn't like the idea, did she?"
"No sir, she was thinking we mistake her for prostitute, and the other ladies called their husbands."
"In this case, maybe it would be a good idea to get the hell out of here?"

In the end we made it up safely to the monastery on a long but beautiful road. It was very peaceful up there with a rewarding panorama of Keylong and the Bhaga valley.

Interestingly, the monastery was inhabitated by both monks and nuns, I must say very camera-happy nuns. They were grea fun to photograph and to talk with. Language didn't mean anything - they talked to me in Ladakhi (I guess), I replied in Hungarian, again making me aware of the two layers of communication - talk is important to exchange information but understanding is built by mimics and gestures. For example: I don't ask "can I take your photo please?", only approach the "model" with a face that has the question written on it. Approaching strangers with the intent of capturing their soul is a precarious thing; on the photographer's side there's the hunter-gatherer instinct, on the model's side it's a mix of vanity, pride and sometimes honour but distrust and pride too, and what a photographer has to do is to approach the model carefully and respectfully enough to strengthen the model's vanity and dispel the distrust. Like dealing with a butterfly - holding it for a moment but not too tightly, without removing that fine powder from its wings that makes it so beautiful.

There must be something to Buddhism. Just like last year, the Buddhists I photographed had a much more relaxed attitude than Hindus or Muslims (Sikhs are in general very vain and love to pose, and are therefore a different matter). They love to have fun and are easy to joke around with. And as usually, the polaroid does the rest. Look how the stern and mysterious lady from the above picture transformed into pure fun (she's the nun in the middle holding the polaroid).

I wanted to enjoy the beautiful views on my own and told Soni to drive back to town without me.

Walking down the path I saw something interesting - it was a lonely figure sitting on a hill, and I immediately got attracted to the juxtaposition. Quietly, I sneaked up behind and tried to capture the feeling I sensed when I saw this lonely human, his small silhouette in such strong contrast to the impressive mountain.

Sneaking closer...

It was tempting to keep this encounter as it was, just to capture the human vs mountain juxtaposition without knowing the face, the name, without actually meeting the person, keeping him unknown. But then my curiosity prevailed (and maybe guilty conscience for sneaking up him behind, too) and I said, "hello".
And then the man looked at me and he turned out to be a woman, a nun, and with a smile on her face that said "I knew you've been sneaking around me the whole time" she replied, "hello!"

I was immediately stunned by a strange feeling, as if confronted with unexpected beauty and calmness, staring at her face that reminded me a little bit to the girl with a pearl earring, of course with a face scarred by cold winters and whatever; I couldn't even guess her age but there was such a beauty emanating from her features that overwhelmed me.

Her name was Padma and for a moment I wished I could stay on that hill with her forever, living off for the rest of my life from that stream of beauty that could have only come from her soul, but then on the one hand I could not and on the other, she was a nun. However, if she had told me "stay, I'll teach you all you need to know about tantra" I would have done so with pleasure, but she didn't say and I didn't ask; maybe it was a mistake. I took one photo after the other, she even removed her cap when I asked her to, and hoped that at least the photographs can mirror a fraction of her most beautiful soul.

Later on I was lucky enough to photograph many girls of great beauty, ranging from innocent village girls to outrageously flirtatious and sexy starlets, but none had made such a deep impression on me than Padma the nun with her shaved head and winter-scarred face. And already when I walked away from her with a futile sigh, I was longing for the moment when I will meet her again in this or another life.

Reality dawns

2010-09-02T13:28:00.018+02:00

Still unaware of what had happened in Ladakh, we set out early next morning for Leh following the misty valley of the Bhaga river.

Soon we arrived to the confluence of the Bhaga with two smaller rivers. This is a safe place to cross but in this season, water was extremely high and the bridge declared unsafe for crossing; traffic usually goes through the river and this being impossible, we took the risk and crossed the bridge nonetheless. I promised Soni to take some nice, action-packed photos if the bridge collapses under his Scorpio, and he (obviously very relaxed by my promise) made his way across safely. The funny thing was that dozens of other cars were standing, none of whom had the courage to at least give the bridge a try.

So far so good we thought, and made breakfast.

Now I also had the opportunity to admire one of infamous OK TATA BLOW HORN trucks from close and insde. They are dangerous, slow and polluting but without them, India couldn't exist.

This is how they look from the inside:

And this is me, playing TATA-wallah.

We continued on a deteriorating road, and other drivers told us too that the road is getting worse. But then the Manali-Leh highway is supposed to be bad.

It still had its beauty, despite the foggy weather.

It was here that we met a group of Czech bicyclists, the first and last friendly bicyclists on the road. When there was trouble ahead we usually stopped, or even turned back, to warn them - landslides and so on - but bicyclists ignored us, some of them not even muttering a "thank you". Maybe they think they are the toughest sort of travellers who have the right to be arrogant, or maybe they believed that they can always get through where people on 4 wheels cannot. Maybe that's true but not in this season, not on this highway... Anyway, Soni told me all drivers hate them because they are so slow and fragile and always in their way (probably the feeling is mutual - imagine you're toiling up to a pass at around 4-5000 meters and a TATA truck covers you with dust and noxious exhaust fumes AND horns at you till you get deaf). Besides, hitting a cow brings bad karma but if a bicylist gets hit it only means HE had bad karma, not the trucker... Anyway, the Czechs were a friendly bunch and I hope they made it through safely.

We passed Darcha, Patseo, Zingzingbar (if I'll ever open my own place it will be called "Zing Zing Bar"), made it up to the Suraj lake...

...Baralacha Pass, which was looking less Arctic than last year...

...and had a safe, if bumpy ride. The clouds were still up in the sky, although I hoped to get rid of them beyond Baralacha.

Here we had to stop and wait until a bulldozer cleaned the road from a mudslide. One of the road workers came up to us, turned out orignally he's from Gujarat; he was a nice fellow and very happy (of course) when I gave him a polaroid in exchange for taking his photographs.

Oh yeah, that's the hands who build these roads.

We didn't like his news, though. He told us something about very heavy rain and disrupted roads beyond Sarchu; we heared it before but the closer you get, the more accurate the news is, and now we were maybe 10-12 kms from Sarchu. We wanted to see it with our own eyes.

In the end, this was not necessary. A Mitsubishi Pajero from Mumbai stopped us further up the road, and although I didn't understand the drivers' conversation I could sense in Soni's voice that we're in trouble.

"So what's the news, Soni?"

"Mitsubishi Pajero, sir. Real four-wheel drive. I wish I have one."

"So do I. And what about the road?"

"No road after Sarchu. Bridges are destroyed. Ladakh is destroyed. Leh also destroyed. Too much rain."

"That's not nice at all."

At this point we realized we're beaten. Obviously we used up all our good luck last year, when weather and road conditions were (mostly) perfect. All we could do was returning to Keylong; a bitter thing to do after the hard drive up, not to mention the itinerary. It was still unclear what exactly happened in Leh (we even tried to find news on radio but in vain), and it came to my mind to spend 1-2 nights in Sarchu to wait and see if the road gets cleared. But then, after consdering all options, we decided to turn back to Keylong.

I think it was in Darcha where we stopped for lunch, or maybe just to buy cigarettes, can't remember anymore, but at least I could photograph something other than cloudy landscapes.

Close to Jispa we run into another mudslide. We had entertainment though, because a brave city car tried to play 4wheeldrive and got hopelessly stuck. Meanwhile a little mule caravan passed through the mud, perhaps to show us how vain we car- and road-depending people are.

We had company, too. I took a few shots of a lama, more accurately: Lama Palden from Zanskar (one of our original destinations); in exchange, and because he was a nice fellow, we offered him a ride to Keylong. He was more than happy to accept and while waiting for the road being cleared, we invited him for tea as well which makes him probably the only lama from Zanskar who ever tasted rooibush.

We had to wait long and to bid our time, I picked up a stone and asked him to bless it, so that I have a lucky stone; he did and did it seriously, praying for twenty minutes, sometimes with an expression on his face as if he would be fighting demons. He also gave me a necklace with a Buddha pendant and assured me of the magical power of the blessed stone; as a matter of fact I did try it once and it worked. Now, I'm not a very gullible man, especially not in India where religion is less spirituality than a way to keep people content and calm (imagine if all the 800.000.000 people living off less than 20 rupees a day would march to Delhi and demand rights instead going to their temples), but after Lama Palden got out of the car at his destination, we could still literally feel his presence in the car; usually we made dirty jokes, talked about women and like that, but not this time. For half an hour we drove without him, but still in his presence. A very strange feeling whch I can't attribute only to India, all the more because we carries other holymen later and - with all due respect to them - they didn't left behind their presence like as the lama did.

Anyway, on the other end of the mudslide at last a nice suprise was watng for us: another car from Rajasthan 4W Drive, carrying a Belgian family with a father of Hungarian origin - what a coincidence. It turned out that the company manager, Mr Sinha, tried to call and warn us but we were beyond reach, so he sent the other car after us (or something like that - probably they also wanted to try their luck at Sarchu). Now we learned the full extent of the disaster.

Pedal to the metal, we drove to Tashi Delek Hotel in Keylong, hoping to get there in time before all the returning tourists book all the rooms. We were lucky. Seeing the images from Leh on TV made us realize how lucky we were indeed. If we don't return after our first attempt at Rohtang Pass... if I don't stay in Keylong to treat my allergy...

We all watched the breaking news in shock and sorrow. Funnily, when I wanted to take a photograph of the sad faces and people realized they're being photographed, suddenly everyone started to smile. Almost everyone, that is. And then looking back to the TV screen and sad again.

My feelings were mixed... There was that very human feeling of selfishness, the feeling of relief over having avoided a calamity. I remembered a few genuinely friendly people I met last year in and around Leh, like the lady from the netcafé, the schoolgirls outside her shop, the girl in a yellow dress with whom I bargained so hard - and with so much fun - for some jewellery, the smiley old monk who reminded me of my grandfather and who was the only person I ever met there knowing the difference between hungry and Hungary. I was deeply concerned for them. But there were also the suckers - the Muslim shopkeepers trying to act like Ladakhis selling Buddhist stuff, the greedy people in the hotels, the whole taxi maffia with their stinking old jeeps and exorbitant prices, their threats to punch our tires if we dare to drive with our own car to Pangong Lake and Nubra. For their fate I couldn't care less, I even hoped it hit them hard.

And then, of course, the regret of not being there to document all this with photographs, not being able to help despite being a strong and brave man carrying enough medical supplies to stock up a small pharmacy. I heard the news about many foreigners desperate to leave Leh and felt miserable. Why couldn't I be there and join the few who stayed and helped, whatever way they could? That night took a serious toll on my whiskey reserve.

Luckily, later Dominique showed up and at least I could share one of my two bottles of wine with him. We listened to Burnng Spear and George Harrison, feeling like two old hippies out of place and time, and I took care to keep my depressed thoughts to myself.

50 percent allergy, 50 percent luck

2010-09-01T09:37:00.020+02:00

I asked Soni what decent people like him think about all such misery, like the people in Ambala or the tailor and his consort; he replied, "50 percent karma, 30 percent government corruption, 20 percent no education". A very fitting defintion if you ask me, which could be further fine-tuned to include a healthy ratio of arrogance, ignorance, inertia, stupidity and superstition too, depending on whom we meet in incredible India.

When I saw it first in 1994 I very much loved Manali but now it was just another tourist trap, and staying in the backpacker's haven of Old Manali I realised I'm too old for this stuff, or it was simply the rain that made me hate the place. I was qiute happy to leave the place next morning (4 August, Wednesday) but a tyre had to be fixed and when we arrived to the first slopes of Rohtang Pass it was already 12.15 with the unavoidable traffic jam - trucks, jeeps, buses waiting bumper-to-bumper for a miracle to happen. The scenery was gorgeous, though.

Photography was challenging - the clouds were bright, the valley dark, making landscape shots very challenging for the 5D's dynamic range. As usually, it was a choice between blown highlights above and seriously underexposed areas below. I didn't had a tripod so HDR was no option. I therefore used a Cokin Z-Pro series ND4 neutral grad filter to slightly tame the highlights, measured the exposure on the darker areas and underexposed them by -2/3 or 1; this was enough to avoid blown areas in the sky and the underexposed areas are easy to light up in post-editing, either by shadow contrast in RAW Shooter or the soft light brush in PS.

We still could have made it in a long day to Jispa or at least Keylong but I decided to turn back to Manali; after all, we were not in a hurry. Back in town I used the afternoon for a stroll on the Mall and portrait-hunting; it was a pleasure to meet again a few people from last year like him:

When I met him, this friendly old laundry-man was ironing some shirts exactly like last year (hopefully not the same shirts) and still had this look, a mixture of enigmatic, annoyed and disapproving. Hard to believe that he put it on only when I photographed him. There was another man too who is a good example to show some of the challenges in Indian portrait photography: bright clothes and very dark skin.

Using a fill-in flash is tricky because it's hard for the camera to find the correct exposure, and besides, usng flash on dark skin like this can easily screw up the skin tones and result in blown areas on the nose and forehead. I had a Lightsphere flash diffuser on my 580EXII Speedlight but it's not really for outdoor shooting and didn't help me much in such situations. Again, taking a shot avoiding blown highlights in the bright areas and lighting up the face in post-editing was the solution (this one is not edited at all - the face tones could still be improved).

We spent the night at Hotel Mount View, a budget place where the atmosphere of bygone times made up for the not-so-classy bathroom facilities (meaning: when I flushed the toilet, the water came back from a hole in the plumbing - let's call it water recycling); in the evening I had a rush of loneliness and homesickness, as inevitable in the first days of travel as diarrhea, but painful nonetheless. I called someone who should know this feeling very well as he was on the road himself, and I wished he were here or me with him in Israel, but my call was bruised off with an "if you've nothing important to say don't call me, it's expensive for me". Actually there's a point to that... probably it's also time for me to save money on phone calls to Hungary.

Next morning, 5 August, we started out early, enough to avoid the worst of the traffic up Rohtang Pass. In vain. We got there early enough but the inavoidable traffic jam was already waiting for us, turning the misty Pass into a mud-wrestling between trucks and jeeps in the slow, depressing rain.

We slowly made up to Marhi, a little cluster of small dhabas and a temple, where we had breakfast for the body and Baba Ramdev on TV as food for the soul; I don't understand Hindi, and my soul remained rather hungry.

I had hoped that after the damned pass weather will improve like last year, but the mist prevailed, only occasionally fading away into pale sunlight.

But at least the rain stopped, and as we slowly approached Keylong the sun came out (later I wished it wouldn't have, for very inconvenient reasons). My left forearm was itching and when I pulled up my sleeve I saw to my horror that my skin is covered with ugly, disgusting rash - some already running pus. An allergy was all I could think about, even though I never ever developed an allergy to anything (probably it was not such a good idea to start the day with a Red Bull - paracetamol combo?). Even though we could have made it to Leh with a very long afternoon trip, we had to stop at Keylong and visit the hospital as I had the nightmarish vision of the rash getting over all my body by next morning. I took a few shots in Keylong though; then left our gear at a hotel and rushed to the hospital.

Keylong's state-run hospital is far better than one would expect. It was funny too, because a policeman brought in another officer who was allegedly drinking on duty and the young doctor had some difficulty trying to find out the truth:

"- What's your name, officer?

- I swear I didn't drink, doctor!"
Guilty as charged if you asked me... anyway, in the end I got two anti-allergic shots, medicine and a balm wth the advice to avoid sunshine. That was really cool - all I wanted was to escape the bad weather, and then I mustn't because going to the sunshine was verboten. Back in the hotel I spent the night trying not to scratch, applying the balm and watching boring Hindi news channels.

However... soon news were to turn exciting because that was the night when a cloudburst devastated half of Leh, several kilometers of the highway and two vital bridges beyond Sarchu. If we don't return the day before, it hits us in Leh; if we don't have to stop for treating my allergy at Keylong, it hits in the Indus Valley or more likely, in the wilderness beyond the Morey Plains. But for the time being we were safe and sound in Keylong.

Here's our refuge, as seen from the Buddhist monastery opposite the town.

Trespass, rape and kidnap at f=2,8

2010-08-30T12:02:00.011+02:00

The first hills appeared on the horizon as we aproached Kalka, the gateway of the Himalayas.

Kalka is a typically chaotic and dirty town, renown for being the starting point of the toy train to Simla. Having our own roads, we were just passing through...

...until I saw something interesting in a roadside shop. A small girl was tending to her grandfather and I immediately felt drawn into this scene of intimate tenderness amidst all the filth, noise and chaos.

Skirting a cow I approached the shop and leant over a table loaded with underwear and socks for sale, all dirty from street filth and exhaust fumes, wishing my 24-70 were just a little longer.

While I was vacillating whether just peeking inside into their intimacy and keep them undisturbed or say "hello" for politeness' sake, the girl realized I was there and turned around. Oups - she was not a little girl as I thought but a midget.

It was her truly innocent charm that cast a spell on me, though, topped with the happy contentment on the old tailor's face. To me, that was pure love although I could only guess what their relation was. Photography-wise it was a tricky situation. I wanted to frame them with their environment, to include the old Singer and the word "TAILOR" to the right, but that would have made them less dominate the picture. Focusing closer, the corner of the tablet protruded into the frame. A flaw I had to live with I guess... any arrangement or instruction would have caused the tender moment to disappear.

The good news was that the neighboring shopkeepers seemed to genuinely respect and take care of them. One of them, a Sikh, literally ordered me to show them the pics on the LCD and when I told him "I'll give them a much better gift" he asked, "what? MONEY???" with an expression on his face that promised nothing good. However, it was my Fuji Instax I reached for and the polaroid did its magic once again, making them perfectly happy. In return I got a kiss as a good-bye present.

On we drew towards Manali, or better to Kasauli where we hoped to arrive before nightfall. We stopped occasionally for tee & cigarettes at a dhaba, a roadside shack selling basic food and chai, which was good opportunity to get more acquainted to my new 24-70/2,8L. I received this magnificent lens only a few daysbefore departure and soon realized how much better it was than the 24-105/4L I used last year. My piece of last year was obviously flawed since I could never get it to focus accurately but the new lens performed extremely well. I missed image stabilization though because my hands aren't as steady as they used to be and it's very easy to get a photo blurred at 2,8, especially with such a heavy lens. Popping up ISO to 400-800 and faster shutter speed helped to eliminate this risk, and shooting RAWs made it possible to reduce the noise to a decent level afterwards. Another trick was to raise my left arm to my chest and lay the camera on it instead of holding it by my hands.

On the road, I tried to do more of my favorite juxtaposition: wide-angle shots of people with their mountainous land in the background.

But it was shortly before Manali where I found treasure. Another small dhaba, run by two girls. The dirty, smoke-stained wall was a perfect background for portraits in itself, and the younger girl with her big eyes, resembling dark diamonds, was just the perfect model for a close-up portrait.
My little model liked to pose but her older sister disapproved and despite trying to display my best maners, the situation got tense. We quickly finished our chai and left. Two lonely girls alone in a roadside dhaba - can't entirely blame them for being a little paranoid. I asked Soni why she was scared. He said, locals think I will sell their pictures for lots of money (I wish that was true!) or worse, show the pictures to bad people who then will come and kidnap the girls. What could I say? At this point I was already believing what Susan Sontag said about photography being a form of rape and violence, and kept pondering over this until we arrived in a foggy, rainy Manali.

A quest to kill the Buddha

2010-08-29T20:23:00.006+02:00

You know the Zen saying: if you meet the Buddha, kill it.
I did never really get the meaning of this till now. It means: you can't meet something you're not supposed to meet. It can only be an illusion, and as such, you need to get rid of it. Translated into photographic language: if you capture the perfect motif on your travel, delete it. It's not the real stuff. Talking about India, it means that beautiful Rajasthani man with his turban, the big-eyed girls with their nose piercings, elephants in the sunset, the pink hue of the Taj at dawn, camels in the Thar desert. But subsequently a feeling of deja vu sets in: all these perfect motifs have been photographed and seen ten thousand times. We take a photographic inventory of all what's interesting and exotic, not realizing it's just a visual delusion that needs to be pierced. The challenge is to show something that tells a story beyond travel experience and exoticism. Taking photographs where the location is totally negligible, because they have something universally human to them.
Bottomline: if you meet him, kill the Buddha. If you go to India, don't take photographs about India.
I wanted to test this theory. By the way, why India? I love the Himalayas, the scent of pinewood and deodar; I love the history of the Raj, you know, Great Game and all; and last not least, Indian life saturates the heart both in a good and bad way, making it an experience that never fails to touch the soul.

Besides, I had some unfinished business there.

So, after arriving on 2 August at Delhi I hooked up with Soni and his trusty Scorpio and we headed immediately for Ambala. I had hoped to see Priyanka again. I took with me her photographs, some toys and a reasonable amount of money to make her life a little easier, and being an incurable dreamer I even asked my wife what she'd say if I returned with an adopted little girl in my luggage. (She liked the idea.) We made our way to their shanty opposite Ambala's Maronite church.

Disappointment waited, the first of many as it turned out later. Priyanka wasn't there - she traveled back to their village in Bihar with her family. What could I do? I asked the neighbors to give them the photographs when they return.

In turn, the neighbors came with their kids and asked to be photographed; however, they were all sick, some of them with a horrible skin disease all over their fly-covered faces. A proud father lifted up his son to the lens; he started to vomit. "Hey man, he's sick" I said but the man just kept him up laughing.

They showed me another woman and insisted I photograph her. She must have been la plus beau du quartier or something because they were really pushing me, and I reluctantly took a few shots because she didn't look too happy.

I asked to see her husband, because out of respect I thought I need to talk to him; the father of the vomiting baby disappeared in a shack and I saw him literally kicking awake a sleeping man. Judged by his eyes he was dosing off a healthy amount of alcohol or drugs, and probably didn't even get my meaning when Soni translated my words about "thanks for letting me taking photos of your wonderful wife etc. I wish well for your daughter may she be a mother of a thousand sons etc. please take this teddy bear and give it to her when she's bigger etc...". Disappointed, impotent in my wish to make a difference and sweating like a pig in the scorching heat, I told Soni: let's get the hell out of here and thanks to God for air conditioning. Climbing back into the car I realized: it's not about getting the hell out of this place, it's about getting out of hell.

Passage to India 2.0

2010-08-28T22:31:00.005+02:00

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Or sick. Or just breaks your heart.

Cutting through indifference

2010-07-25T23:03:00.009+02:00

First an update of the site building project: things are going well, if we wanted to xxx.co could be launched in two months, However, there's no need to hurry and right now me and Mr X are gathering more ideas and trying to find the balance between a fully screened site and an on-line gallery that gives members more freedom to present their works. One thing I never liked about 1x was that one couldn't show what he wanted, instead 1x showed what they found most popular. A huge difference.

Anyway, right now I want to record some thoughts I wanted to clear for a long time. It's about documentary and portrait photography. More accurately, two things: how to photograph people in misery without exploiting them and becoming demagogue, and how to make such a photo work.

As a starter, here's one I took of charming little Sapuna in Nakho, Northern India.

It's a decent photo IMO but something is missing. She looks stern beyond her years and her chaffed skin also tells a tale about life in a Himalayan village so remote even God needs a geo-tag to find it. But no self-respecting photographer (and on my better days I claim to be one) wants to produce pictures which gain impact only from the misery of their subjects. Nobody wants to get those "OMG, what a poor-poor child" reactions. No need for condescending and a fake feeling of superiority.

The other issue is that viewers are smart. More often than not they refuse being manipulated by a photograph appealing to their social conscience and compassion. Too many images of this kind; maybe we are not cynics after all just saturated.
Compassion is the keyword - getting connected with the subject. How to achieve this? What technique or detail could get past sobriety, the very understandable self-defence of "oh no, I'm bored of photos of poor and sick people" and so on?

Looking at a photo by my friend Zoltan Huszti, whose cheerful character doesn't prevent him from an occasional dive into the deepest bowels of Bulgarian society, I got a step closer to the solution. Let's have a look at this:

We see the village fool, a retarded woman and if we look closely we can even see the lice crawling on her arms. The reaction could be: "uhm yes, life is difficult, poor woman and all." A photograph that aims very directly at our tear sacs and we don't like such direct messages.

I edited this and cloned out a little detail. Here's the original:

For me, it's that rose that makes the big difference. A little embroidery to to make her rags just a little fancy. The aim to display something beautiful like we all do. Some got Zegna ties or Prada shoes - she got that rose. In my eyes this is the detail that connects me with her: call it vanity but for me this is the eternal human longing for being beautiful. And when there is such a detail that connects, any condescending attitude gives way to compassion.

Too bad there's not always such a detail, but honest people photography has never been easy.

It reminded me to a photograph I took a decade ago.

Look at that funny duck with the sombrero. Maybe now I better understand why I framed it this way; now I would include more of that duck. Anyway, that was in 1999 and hope to see her again soon. Just like Sapuna and my favorite "model", Priyanka. I'm a cold-hearted bastard but somehow she got through to my soul.

This time next week I'll be in India again, trying to use all the good things I've learned from the pictures of Zoltan, Andre and many, many other friends.

Let's build a new site (or die trying)

2010-07-22T23:57:00.008+02:00

Photo sites are like eating out: even if you dine at a three-star Michelin restaurant each day, sooner or later you'll get the desire to prepare something at home just the way you like it, or maybe to add that extra flavor you've always missed from the menu.

I mean: no matter which site you prefer, one day the idea arises why not to create your own photo community site with all the good features found and all the things you've been missing or seen ignored elsewhere?

Of course copying an idea from here and there is not the proper way, and there's always the question what makes a site particularly attractive and special. How to spice up the basic idea of photographers presenting their work with extra features in order to promote their vision, provide them with feedback on their works, extend their network or even let them make money.

I've been nurturing this idea for a while but 1x had made me a little lazy. But now the bug in my ear started to buzz again and consulted a few programmers how much money, time and efforts such a project would require. I even visited a really big name in the business and to my surprise soon found myself talking to their CEO. I expected a conversation like this:

- Mr CEO, sorry for my sweaty T-shirt but I'm on holiday. I want to have a site like this.com, with the evaluation features of that.net and the interface of yetanotherphotosite.org, but of course not just copying their stuff but everything made better and smarter and sexier, playing Johnny Cash every time I open it and providing me secret access to the telephone numbers of Barbara Taurua's female models should she ever publish photos there. Oh yes, and of course full Facebook connectivity and promotion features that make members become dirty filthy rich from all the photos they sell.
- No problem, sir. We will do that in two weeks, development and hosting will cost you 50.000 euros, maintenance etc only 15.000 per month. According to our cost/benefit calculations you will see money from this in 2055.
- Errr.... thanks for the coffee and your time but I need to go and feed the tuna in my fridge.

In reality, the short meeting turned out to last well into the evening with lots of features and ideas discussed and a more or less affordable sum mentioned in the end.

Bottomline: a new site will be born, more or less in the spirit I mentioned in the beginning of this post.
If someone ever thought that the true winners of photo sites are those who get there first, now would be a good time to drop me an email at patakiorama@gmail.com. After all, the site will probably need screeners/curators and a core crew (oh yes! now this is the time to turn the table :)). The name is not fixed yet but several domains have been acquired already. It would be good to have a catchy name attracting lots of visitors, so my pick includes nakedmileycyrusvideos.com, ladygagahasadickandweproveit.org, weknowwhokilledkennedy.net and of course 2x.com. Jokes aside: we snatched some good stuff with all the new .co domains made recently available, and a few .coms and .nets too. I said "we" because special thanks go to the first brave soul who joined me in this, and whose name I prefer not to tell yet.

The site project is still in embryonic stage but if only half can be realized of what's possible, this will be something really big. Maybe we end up dining out in the end but at least let's try to cook for ourselves for once...

From threads to threats

2010-07-20T14:28:00.008+02:00

The full story behind, just to finish this for once and all. Longer, bigger, uncut version.

Here it goes: the core idea of 1x.com is to feature screened images only. If something goes wrong, the root of the problem lies with screening. I became an 1x.com member in February 2009 and by now realized that the coveted front page, where new additions appear, had gradually lost its magic. Too much mainstream, too much middle of the road in general and too many images with technical or other flaws in particular. This used to be an exemption before but recently became a daily issue. The forum was zombified with community life in the state of 911.
How to shake things up? First things first: let's get back to core values. I opened a thread titled "I'm missing Onexposure" to discuss the present situation; as you know, 1x.com was Onexposure.net it its upcoming phase when most of us joined it. Threads and posts telling misgivings about site features, providing technical and/or content suggestions are usually suppressed but the crew somehow let this topic live. Many well-meant suggestions were made and although we didn't all agree about front page becoming dull, there was an overall understanding that adding new screeners wouldn't harm. Appointing new screeners was supposed to work twofold: to give the crew a helping hand in the daily selection routine - 6 screeners are making the final decision about the submissions of about 5500 members, which is mathematical nonsense - and to have screeners for street, documentary, portrait and creative edit channels where the crew (as one of them admitted) are less strong than in other genres.
This initiative enjoyed the support of one of the two founders (Jacob Jovelou) who even encouraged it.

So far, so good.

Then Kevin, head moderator, told me in his most polite way that the "Missing OE" thread will be closed because it was getting off-topic. Kudos for him for doing that. I agreed, and to keep the momentum opened another thread, this time for making members aware that now it's their time to contribute and apply as screeners or recommend others.

Following the screener selection procedure set out by Jacob himself in the first thread, a list of candidates was drawn up and sent to him in OEmail. This thread was also closed and reasonably so, since it was a call for new screeners and no discussion thread.

However, shortly because it was closed, night owls could witness something weird. Ralf Stelander, the other founder appeared and said: this is all a misunderstanding, 1x is not looking for new screeners, and even if they would, crew already has its own list of members they would pick as screeners. This was in total contradiction to everything what was told in the "Missing OE" thread by the crew (Ursula) and Jacob. Surprise surprise, after a little exchange of fire he rescinded and apologised for his mistake.

This was late in the night and for a moment I was thinking that there will be a new dawn for 1x.

So far, still good.

Then, on 14 July (you know: allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé, contre nous de la tyrannie l'étendard sanglant est levé) I wanted to check out "Missing OE" just to check if there was anything I oversaw, and oups - it was gone. Deleted. Exterminated. Without any malice, I posted in the dull old "What ruined your day today" thread: "To find the 'I'm missing Onexposure' thread deleted."

And now comes the nasty part. I admit I don't remember everything in full detail (after all I do have a life in contrary to a certain enthusiastic moderator) but I write all this in full honesty and to my best recollection, because I have no reason to make my own acts look better or the moderator's and crews' worse than they actually were. Unfortunately I can't reconstruct every post - because the "What ruined..." thread was deleted as well.

So: my post, and the reactions thereto by other members (some of them asking the founders very straight questions which of course remained unanswered) made our most enthusiastic moderators go berserk in the best "Silence! I kill you!" style with unprecedented arrogance and a brilliant display of small-scale dictatorship. You know this kind of paranoid character: give him a hammer and he'll see a nail everywhere.
This was the point when I had enough of their little games. I summed up my feelings in three words:

KISS MY ASS.

(I don't want to tell his name because 1x'ers know him and after all he's just a tool in the hand of the crew, so it doesn't matter. I know he's now busily concocting vicious plans against me like a little Gargamel.)
Of course I was banned from posting in Critique and forum in about 30 seconds. Although at this point I couldn't care less about posting at 1x.com anymore, I was really pissed off - no, I was enraged, furious, berserk and reaching out for a fire thrower (but only spilling some coffee into my keyboard - too bad, it was a good one. I mean the keyboard. Our espresso machine sucks.) I wrote him a few OEmails and took extra special care to let him now my opinion about him as a moderator, a character - or better: his lack of it -, his actions, and the incredibly arrogant attitude of 1x.com which he so eagerly represents. Of course I should have known: he already told me once that 1x.com is not a community site but a business, and he will do what his bosses want him to do.

I exchanged a few sad OEmails with Jacob. He was quick to condemn my "agressivity", but if you ask me, all this could have been prevented if he (or Kevin or anyone else) stepped in and replied to the questions other members asked him about the deletion. You know what? They could even had made me apologise to the moderator. God knows I was willing, if in exchange they admitted to have screwed this up even if only in an OEmail. But no, nothing like that.

Probably Jacob wasn't aware of what's going on, but I'm fokken tired to give him the benefit of doubt (which of course I do) and play this "Comrade Stalin is good and fair, it's only his vicious advisors who are evil" kind of game. No way. I was sick and tired of their attitude.

But never ever asked him or anyone else to delete my gallery.

Surprise surprise, next afternoon I try to log in and find myself exterminated from the site. Home page, published photos, OEmails, everything.

That's the end of the story. Just to add a little spice: I had still about 690 days of bronze membership which I received from Ralf as a thank-you (and as I wrongly believed, a token of friendship) in exchange for drafting the user agreement* to the new photo book. Of course I could have argued because the terms of service don't give them the right to cancel a membership like that; but at this stage I couldn't care less about my membership. I doubt that anyone in my position would have.

So folks, that's the end of it. And probably a beginning to many good things as well. Thanks for your support - it would be flattering to think it's about me, but I know it's about just that last little straw that broke the camel's back. When the "Missing..." thread came to a standstill and all was looking bleak, I wrote something nasty and when a few minutes later Jacob appeared and gave us his support, I happily deleted it quickly and wrote instead: I LOVE YOU ALL. This is how I felt and that's exactly what I'd like to tell you here and now. I love you all and thank you.

And one day we will kick some ass. 2x will come. Until then, see you in Sherwood Forest.

*As a little reward to you for having read all this, a bonus warning: if you consider being included in that photo book, read that agreement very carefully... ;)

A blissful day

2010-07-20T03:58:00.006+02:00

Hola Hombre -

I was supposed to tell you something about your photo titled "Blissful day"but didn't quite feel up to the task, so tonight I hooked up with Praefect on the Corvin rooftop - you know that surreal place in Budapest. Hollywood stage set designers are paid lots of bucks to invent something that's been existing there for years already. Anyway, we didn't get wiser together.
On the one hand, your photo is beautiful - no doubt about that.
On the other hand, to tell what it actually is about - at this point we couldn't quite agree and had to ask the pretty waitress to bring us more wine.
It's an everyday setting with an exotic model (for us, that is) but the environmental portrait line is disrupted by the dysfunctional props: the fake pearls and the camera.
Honestly, we failed to solve the riddle. At least on the "to me, this picture is about...." level. But then we agreed that it's not necessary for a photo to tell a full story from A to Z, which might have been due to our tongues made lazy by the wine and I tell you, after one litre of wine one's tongue finds dealing with photo-aesthetic expressions difficult, but even so, Praefect managed to utter words like "epitheton ornans" and I think he even said something about Kant and the sea, but maybe it was the sweat on the back of the waitress he was thinking about as far as the sea was concerned while I was preoccupied with the girl at the next table whom I thought to have seen once in a lesbian porn movie but wasn't quite sure as I was focusing on your image with half of my brains and couldn't make up my mind after even ten minutes of staring. In any case she had long brown hair and beautiful tits and might have been called Daphne but this didn't bring me any closer to solve the riddle of your picture, and because we met to discuss your photo I turned away from her and the boy she was sitting next to and who was much more handsome than me anyway, having the only comfort that at least she wasn't with another woman.
And then probably after seeing the rocking hips of a tourist girl the word "elegance" came to our mind but I'm not sure we actually said this because we had too much wine and couldn't quite spell such complicated words but we agreed with a mutual nod that it's an elegant photograph, because all its elements are bound together by such naturality and precision that makes us believe everything you wanted to tell and of course the opposite of all that too, and that we are blessed to sit in that café thinking about your photograph and enjoying a blissful day. And I want to thank you for showing this photo and saving us from just another boring evening spent with staring at waitresses and porn actresses and unknown butts by giving food to our hungry souls. You photo saved two lazy souls - for today. Keep'em coming, keep'em up.
Gracias.

A few words about 1x.com - Onexposure

2010-07-16T12:20:00.010+02:00

Since February 2009, 1x.com (or Onexposure, as it was called before) seemed to be the perfect site for a committed photograph. The basic idea - not just feature everything that's uploaded but screen them and display only the best selection - is not new or unique but since the humble beginnings, 1X successfully turned it into a hype claiming to feature the "best photos on the web".

I loved this site very much until our relation ended rather abruptly before a few days, and now I'd like to add my own two cents without anger or fondness.

But first of all, an advertisement.
So...

1) Does 1X really feature the best photos on the web?

I don't think so, simply because no site does. There's too much good photography on the web. But before we dismiss their slogan as pure marketing, let's admit that someone coming from Flickr & Co which display just about everything that's uploaded may find the 1x front page and galleries a veritable oasis for the eyes. This is also due to the puritanistic, no-nonsense and ad-free(!) design. However, if you compare their front page and galleries to some pools and groups on Flickr, or the selection channels on competing sites like 500px.com, the "1xperience" ((c) by Alex O'Brien) is less striking. Let's face it: as such, stuff on 1x is not that better than what you see elsewhere but displaying selected work only does the trick. The hype works, at least in the beginning.

Some say the site developed like a U turned upside down: there was an early phase with lots of images that were mediocre at best, then there was a peak time with many truly outstanding photographers and now there's a downward phase with many purely eye-candy shots, self-repeating motifs and boring escapism. I don't want to go into this because everyone can form his own opinion who knows the site; suffice to say, 1x is for me personally no longer the source of inspiration what it used to be. It might have been "searching for the sublime" in the beginning, but as it grew 1x seems to have forgotten what it's actually looking for.

2) Feedback and critique

There's lots of feedback channels around from photosig to devArt et cetera, but in my roamings I found 1x's Critique section the very best. One receives lots of detailed feedback from very good photographers in relatively short time. It's give and take so one has to write four critiques to gain an upload slot but this is just about fair.

And now the bad news. Most images in Critique had been rejected and the critics' approach is (almost) always "It was rejected. This means it's not good. Let's find out why". In truth, there are many excellent photographs there and the difference between dozens of "wow great shot" comments and dozens of "crop it, sharpen it, add more contrast" critiques is only where you see the image - published on front page or submitted to Critique.

And you know how it goes... if you want you can find flaws in even the most successful photographs. Doisneau's Kiss is badly composed, McCurry's Afghan girl is just a photo-shy girl without the context and it turns human misery into an eye-candy, Robert Capa's Death of a milicist was (caugh, caugh, errr...) probably staged and it's quality is awful - and so on. No photograph is ever flawless. Besides we don't photograph to please other photographers anyway.

There's also a tendency to over-analyse photographs which is strenghtened by the paranoid moderation: one can't just write "To me this is a perfect photograph which doesn't need to be improved" because such comments are deleted at lightning speed. One always has to find flaws even if there are none worth to mention.

Even worse, sometimes you can see photos on the front page which would rightfully be blown to pieces in Critique but were published anyway. For example, look at the cloning trails here. It's not the photographer's fault in the first place but of the screeners who sometimes screw up in their search for the sublime. (Why the photog didn't upload an improved version after publication is a different matter...).

Anyway, it's useful for beginners desperately looking for some real feedback but once you start to judge your own photos with a trained eye there's not much to learn there.

3) Community

There's lots of diversity on 1X and members from all over the world, which is of course great; politics and other sensible subjects which could be the source of conflicts are gracefully avoided in the forum. People on 1x treat each other well in general and 1x was the beginning of many beautiful friendships but what truly matters in the end is how the site crew treats its members.

Now... photographers can be difficult people with all their vanity and big egos, including me of course, and people maintaining a site for photographers should be capable of dealing with this. Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is a paranoia over the site: any feature suggestion, no matter how benevolent in its intentions and polite in its tone, is verboten and gets deleted pretty soon by the crew. Or even worse: just dismissed as "whining over rejections". As if anything apart from "wow what a great site how happy I am to be here" would be considered dangerous for scaring away new paying members. Suggestions by members are usually neglected completely, or first neglected and later implemented without any credit to the guy who came up with it. Add a healthy amount of arrogance from the founders and trouble is guaranteed. Needless to say, the screening procedure and its decisions - the very core of the site - are taboo and any attempt to talk about it results in deleted threads, usually communicated with an arrogance that's unbelievable for any business living out from their paying membership.

Anyway... when I joined 1x in early 2009, there was a buzzing community life in the forums, with IRL meetings and lots of fun. Not anymore. But members are still free to congratulate themselves for being 1xers and of course giving thanks to the crew for everything; and oh yeah, you can even tell the others what music you are listening to right now. Ain't this fascinating?

4) Copyrights

One last but important point. Once you upload an image and it gets published, you can't delete it. Again: published images cannot be deleted. You can ask the crew to delete them of course and if they agree, they'll do it. This is a very strange practice and stands on weak legal grounds, as for a long time this wasn't even mentioned in the user's agreement (which was legally seen not a very professional contract anyway compared to other sites). As one of the founders tried to explain: "If we deleted all photos by a photographer, many hours of unpaid work by screeners and other members (giving critique and commenting photos) would be gone." Sorry but this is no legal argument for not letting a photographer execute his most basic rights over his works. Once the photos are published, one can't do much about them: they can't be organised into sets, galleries or series. It's possible to do that in the home page that comes with paying membership but frankly, while the home pages are decent and lot of efforts was put into them by the site's programmer they are not why people want to be on 1x.

Talking about copyrights: the system automatically adds a tag to images with a huge 1x logo to make using stolen photos a little less easier. Imagine, they even indicate the photographer's name - in small letters one quarter of the size of the logo, just to show who is more important. Isn't this generous? I left this for last because it's so much typical for 1x in general: such a cool idea and such badly realized.

Bottomline: is it a good site or not? In my very subjective opinon: if you look for a challenge and good learning opportunity, yes it is. If you already know how to tell a good photograph from an average one, go elsewhere and save yourself some frustration.

Now I lay me down to sleep

2010-03-05T01:18:00.001+01:00

"Based on our review of your application, you have been approved as an Affiliated Photographer and/or a Digital Retouch Artist to serve on behalf of the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation."

Possible memories

2010-03-04T02:45:00.002+01:00

Inspirations

2010-02-13T21:28:00.006+01:00

I stumbled upon another inspiring portrait today, this time by Andre du Plessis from sunny South Africa. To me it is a step beyond diptych or split technique, because he managed to take two photographs in one single shot.
First, we see a portrait with superb tones:

...and as if this wouldn't be enough, the photo develops into an emotional-environmental portrait on the right side.
That's what I mean with taking one shot and getting two. It could be actually three: far left, single portrait; center, emotional; far right, environmental. The little devil inside makes me longing for something to fill in the space on the right, like another figure in the background or some interesting detail of environment, but perfectionism spoils all the fun.
Bottomline: terrific concept, for me another lesson learned. I need to ask him next time how he produces such delicate low-keyish tones on his portraits of dark-skinned models - quite challenging!

The art of split portraits

2010-02-08T19:14:00.016+01:00

When it comes to spice up our portraits, it's usually about desperately looking for a new editing method but to my knowledge Andzrej Dragan was the last who discovered one, at least in terms of popularity and imitation, and Ed Carlile is the only one I know who managed to go beyond imitating Dragan. But it stands for photography too that there's nothing new under the sun, and inventing new techniques can sometimes be a mere re-discovery of artistic means used for a thousand years. That's how I found the age-old tool of diptychons, or for the purpose of this post: split portraits.

WikiAnswers makes it sound easy: A diptych is a photograph that uses two different or identical images side by side to form one single artistic statement. The two images can literally be in contact with each other, or separated by a border or frame.

The human body is - in most cases anyway - aligned vertically with the head on top and the rest below. It is often a problem to include the face and, for added information, hands in the frame. Usually we position the face or eyes in the upper golden section. But how to include the hands? If we want to get close to our model, it is challenging to include them, and the question remains how to connect composition-wise the space between hands and face. Avoiding a too low, and therefore sometimes cropped position of the arms is also challenging like it was in this image.

One day I found the two images below on Nicoleta's lovely blog, and seeing them together sparked the idea of putting them into the same frame.

As a result, we have an image that works two ways: we have a portrait above and a documentary image below. The scene could have been put into a single frame, but making it two and including them in a split single frame results in more details due to the closer point of view. In a single frame, we couldn't get close to the subject like this. At this moment, it came to my mind that I'd made a similar experience with two of my own images.

Of course if we compose the split afterwards, it can't be as good as a pre-visualised and accordingly executed concept. The following examples are works from a joint project by Ara Oshagan and Levon Parian (who is a visual artist, not writer). In these images, it becomes obvious how important it is to fine-tune the composition of the two separate shots to make them work as a whole.

The upper part of the image below has a dynamic composition with the head tilted to the left side (creating a downwards "negative" diagonal). It is perfectly balanced out by composing the lower part equally dynamic, with a diagonal from the lower left to the upper right. The hands make the music, so to say, and the direction of the model's limb makes the rest by serving as both background and compositional element to balance out the alignment of the upper part.

The image below is, on the contrary to the first, composed following a vertical line. Both parts follow the same conceptual symmetry: any diverging lines of composition would ruin the impression. The face is slightly out of this vertical, though, but only to the extent of adding a little tension to the vertical composition.

As I said, the two images are part of a photo-essay on survivors of the Armenian Genocide, Ara's joint project with Levon Parian. Check it out by any means, and watch the video in my previous post for a better understanding of what these people went through.

And the variations are endless. Environmental portraits or glam shots (and virtually everything) can be spiced up with this method, just have a look at Carrie Yury's works.

Publish Post

And if we think about all the possibilities offered by diptychs, a triptych could be almost a visual overkill. Sometimes it seems to me that hunting high and low for new editing techniques is all but a one-way street. Going back to the basic techniques of visual arts can be a much more inspiring and therefore rewarding experience.

epigrammaton's video

2010-02-06T00:03:00.004+01:00

Imagine
that you are of same age with the Land you live on
with the Nature that surrounds you
with the nurturing, welldoing rays of the Sun
that you were born in the arms of Mountains
that you grew up protected by a loving Father
imagine you had known the real Glory
the real Wisdom
but most of all Destruction
Pain
Suffering
Humiliation
And even Death
Forget everything
if you can!

(I stumbled upon this video today totally by chance. Of course, the vintage Genocide photographs are not mine, neither is the shot of the girl with the tightly sawn lips. The rest... it's good to know that my photographs inspire others.)

A magyar Capa

2010-02-05T00:31:00.006+01:00

Szarkasztikus cím, de találó... Még valamikor 2000 táján egy, a Fotó-Videóban megjelent cikken felbuzdulva felkerestem Dr. Szentpétery Pétert, egy haláláig aktív, valódi reneszánsz embert. Nem csak arról volt nevezetes, hogy ő volt a 2. világháború utolsó élő magyar haditudósítója, hanem arról is, hogy a háború végén sokakkal ellentétben nem semmisítette meg a negatívjait, hanem nem kevés bátorsággal megőrizte azokat a rendszerváltásig. S mintha ez már nem lett volna épp elég kockázatos az antiidőkben, 56-ot is végigfotózta és azokat a képeket is megőrizte.
Találkozásunk során szerény és zárkózott volt, fotózni is csak azzal a feltétellel engedte magát hogy adok neki a képekből. Én viszont súlyos hibát követtem el, mert úgy gondoltam hogy ezzel a megtisztelő feladattal hűséges társamat, a régi Chinon CM7 kamerámat bízom meg. Csakhogy kiderült, a Chinon zárja rosszul működött és egyetlen kép sem sikerült. Annyira szégyelltem magamat hogy még csak nem is szóltam róla Szentpéterynek. Amikor 2005-ben elhunyt, úgy gondoltam hogy ez a vétkes mulasztás már életem végéig kínozni fogja a lelkiismeretemet.

Ma az 1X-en egy érdekes vita volt arról hogy Capát szeretjük és tiszteljük, de nem volt-e a másik oldalon ugyanolyan tehetséges fotós, aki csak azért nem lett hozzá hasonló sztár, mert bár képein a katonák ugyanúgy szenvednek és harcolnak, mint Capa képein, csak éppen a vesztesek egyenruháját viselik? Márpedig Capa és Szentpétery - az "elég közeli" képek bátorságán túl - azért is rokoníthatók, mert képeik az egyéni emberről szólnak a háborúban, nem ideológiáról és propagandáról.

Szerettem volna az 1X-es haveroknak megmutatni pár Szentpétery-fotót, de hosszú keresés után csak 1956-osokat találtam. Azokat is pocsék minőségben, egy 1996-ot idéző freewebes oldalon. Ekkor támadt a gondolatom, hogy felveszem a kapcsolatot a hagyatékát kezelő lányával, mert Szentpétery munkássága a mostaninál többet érdemel. Talán így sikerül, mintegy poszthumusz, lerónom a régi adósságomat? Nosza, írtam egy emailt és felajánlottam, hogy a képeket normálisan beszkennelem, csinálok egy weboldalt korrekt angol fordítással és a többi. Legnagyobb örömömre Szentpétery Márta nem zárkózott el az ötlettől, így remélem hogy a továbbiakat valamikor Pesten megbeszélve vele, hamarosan több száz don-kanyarbeli negatívtekercs várja majd az asztalomon hogy a legjobb képekből méltó emléket állítsak Szentpétery Tibornak és a képein szereplő magyar katonáknak.

Egyébként Szentpétery életét egyszer egy Leica mentette meg azzal, hogy felfogta egy orosz mesterlövész golyóját. (Mit nem adott volna Capa egy ilyen sztoriért...) Velledits Éva fenti fotóján az életmentő Leicával látható.

Apropó Capa... már csak az ő emléktábláját kéne megcsinálni a szülőházára a Városháza utcában, mert ez a projekt is lassan 10 éve húzódik, aztán szerintem rendben is lennék a lelkiismeretemmel.

R.I.P., Belgian scrapbook

2010-02-02T22:49:00.003+01:00

I started this blog in September 2007 to share my thoughts about photography, as a spin-off the half-abandoned Driftwood Gallery. Hence the title: new photonotes. ("New", because "photonotes" wasn't available as title and URL. I was also considering a catchier title like "Britney Spears naked" or "horny Japanese college girls" but changed my mind in the last minute. My visiting stats suffer ever since.) It turned into a photoblog, but I didn't take (and post) enough pictures for it to become a really good photoblog. Brussels is hardly photogenic during the five winter months, and recently our weekend trips to the countryside also ceased for various reasons. There was nothing to post. For some time I considered abandoning this blog alltogether. Somehow however I feel again like writing and decided to get back to the beginnings: here go my very subjective and fallible notes on photography.
I'll write in English to practice the language, and in my mother tongue if something Hungarian-related pops up. Enjoy!

The art of environmental portraiture

2010-02-02T00:16:00.007+01:00

My mind keeps coming back again and again to this powerful photograph. So, today I opened the Bible (meaning Taschen's fabulous "20th Century Photography") to read more about Arnold Newman. It says, "environmental portait" - developed by Newman - is the art of including in the portrait objects characteristic of the portrayed person, thereby associating the subject with his work and with the world of ideas. (I think Newman didn't invent it, he only was the first to turn it into one's particular style. Just to mention Cartier-Bresson who used it as well, even a decade before Newman changed from documentary to portrait photography in the 1940s, and XIXth century portraiture was also environmental in this sense of meaning). It's like pizza actually, you don't need to invent it but you must make it in a way that's both new and outstanding.
I tried to get beneath the layers of Newman's photograph, partly trying to understand what Taschen meant by "connecting the subject with the world of ideas". First, it is a fabulous BW shot consisting only of three tones (black, grey, white) which almost gives the impression of an abstract painting. It is the black piano only that bring dynamism into the picture; if Stravinsky wouldn't sit there, we could easily mistake it for a purely geometrical shape. This alone could make it a great artwork, but there's the subject. Stravinsky is looking small compared to the huge black shape of the piano. He looks relaxed and void of any emotion, almost bored.
From here on, we have two options. (In Hungarian, we call this útelázgazgolódás.)
One is: the portrait gets its power from the contradiction between the seemingly unimportant artist and the huge, dynamic, powerful shape of the piano which symbolizes his music. Hence, the photo is about Stravinsky's music. He's only there to make sure we don't think it's about, let's say, Béla Bartók.
The other is: for Stravinsky, his art is more important than himself, telling us that he is a reserved and modest man (could you imagine a portrait showing a small Dali and a huge painting by him? I hardly think so...). Thus, the photo is about Stravinsky.
This is what I thought since I posted the photo a few days ago but today I discovered another layer beyond abstract beauty and symbolism.
To me, the piano looks like a lion, opening wide his mouth and Stravinsky looks like a lion-tamer in the circus putting his mouth into it - no big gestures needed because he rules the beast. And Stravinsky's music can be like a beast - just listen to this from 6.00 onwards. So, my path of understanding this photograph is: the piano reminds to a lion, the lion stands for ferociousness and power, and it is this association with the beast that leads to recognize the same ferociousness and power in Stravinsky's music. Newman doesn't show the music, he only provides us with a symbol from which we can discover the idea of his music.
And that's what I find ingenious - Newman lets us discover this music, the soul of the artist, by following our own imagination and associations. He doesn't show all this directly, like Cartier-Bresson in the famous Giacometti shot (also a masterpiece of environmental portraiture but I prefer Newman's subtlety). In the photograph, Stravinsky's lack of emotions becomes a symbol for mastering the music - not fighting it like Beethoven, not doing playful magic like Mozart, not meditating over it like Bach. He simply rules over it.
Of course, it was good that about 20 years ago, on a long train trip from Budapest to Lenti, I read his biography and hence know that he was a reserved guy, not devoid of humour but taking music deadly seriously without making a big fuss about it; he was a star, but didn't consider himself one. I don't have the patience and time anymore to read such biographies but fortunately there are such photographs which tell volumes.

And now - music.

2010-01-27T18:58:00.005+01:00

It's said that a good portrait reflects the soul of the subject. If that's correct, a good artist portrait should reflect the spirit of his art. And if it's a musician, the portrait should show the music. For example, if we look at the famous portrait of Stravinsky by Arnold Newman, it's obvious that he's not about easy listening. Neither is Lemmy Kilmister looking like chill-out on Ibiza. And this guy does definitely not look like a countertenor (but he is - that was a suprise :))

It's easy to photograph musicians when antics and looks are part of the show, like Marilyn Manson or Adam Ant (just to commit the sin of talking about them in the same sentence). It gets difficult when there's only the holy trinity of artist, instrument and music. I saw today such a photograph. It's Miroslav Tadic, one of the world's best guitarists. Listen to the music, and see how the photo captured it - the underplayed and therefore all the stronger passion, the dynamics, seemingly so free and unbound, yet as disciplined and strict as square format. And look at his face - glancing at his fingers, like a beast-tamer looking proudly at his trained lions in the circus, expecting them to do their tricks, knowing that they would. All we have to do is to watch and enjoy the show.

Hvala Dalibor!

Define contemporary

2010-01-27T11:54:00.012+01:00

Even in the age of flickr, when everyone and their aunt has a web gallery and photography seems to be democratic like never before, the old truth remains: trends are set by the opinionmakers. But who is an opinionmaker nowadays? Bloggers give old giants like Aperture a hard time and don't let them rest on their well-deserved laurels. However, even with a photo blog behind every virtual tree, just a few bloggers have the eye to present artwork that's diversified but equally high quality-wise. Blogs like http://www.vasodeaguablog.com/ do us a great favor: they search the net for finding the buzz, and show us the best of their pick.

What I like about this blog is the diversity of the featured artists. For instance, there's Isa Marcelli with her stunning ability to master the difficult art of square format composition. One has to admire John Salisbury's travel in time. David J. Nightingale offers HDRs that make sense (his jumping shot is hilarious). Aneta Kowalczyk's portraits are a hot breath in the neck of some well-established glam and portrait masters, not to mention Falsalama (although he has better stuff on his flickr page than the selected ones imo). James Wainwright re-defines blur. There's even food photography by Christopher Hornaday, definitely off-limits for people on a diet. Jordi Gual makes you commit suicide in a very beautiful and peaceful way, listening all the way to Hurt by Johnny Cash. Tom Stone gives dignity a new meaning with his shots of homeless people. And so on and so forth... the only thing I miss is nudes. Fine art, classic, pin-up, emotive or whatever - there's something inspirational in almost every genre from street to decay, even graphic and furniture(!) design, but this very basic genre is missing.
Anyway, the blog's title is very apt - browsing throught the galleries is indeed like a having a glass of pure refreshing water. Or even better: kaltes klares Wasser...

The site leaves only one question... what does this guy want from me? Compared to some folks featured there, I'm just a wannabe.

Which photo site for feedback and critique?

2010-01-27T00:10:00.007+01:00

So here we go in with the big feedback test... I uploaded the same image (the one on the top in the 22 January post, because it offers good points for critique but still has some beauty to it imo).

Photosig: 3 comments (wow!), unfortunately none of them in-depth or really helpful.
Fotocommunity: no comments and 63 views. This was rather surprising as I posted it in their Critique channel - I'm a member there since 2006 and usually got useful feedback. Nothing good stays the same, obviously.
1x: rejected, which could be business as usual if it wasn't for some ignorant comments in screening (like "overexposed face" - wtf?) Nota bene: if I uploaded it to their Critique channel, I would have probably received useful feedback (I didn't because I know what they would say).
Deviantart: no comments, no critique
Photo.net: no comments no nothing
Reggae.com: no comment, no cry ;)

Bottomline: if I was in need of quick and useful feedback I'd be in trouble. To me, this superficial little test proved that for useful feedback there's no alternative for 1x.com. However... this is what a truly great photographer told me once:

"I haven't sent a single image to the [Critique] section, because in all honesty, if an image that I shot didn't get accepted the way I wanted it, I don't really care about what most people have to say about it. If it was rejected, they will look for flaws. Most advice will be useless, there's again probably just a handful of people whose advice would be useful. When you've got a teenager who hasn't seen life and hasn't really created any significant images telling you that you should crop an image in a particular way, it's usually not worth paying attention. I'll value his opinion, as far as whether an image works or not - a YES or NO answer, but nothing more than that. There's just too much nonsense in critique."

Couldn't agree more. BTW, Mitchell has an excellent Lightroom and PS tutorial you can download from his site for a few bucks. It's worth the investment. Come on, it's the price of 2 bottles of wine.

Hungarian photographers are sadly underrepresented on sites like 1X. Probably because they have three excellent sites to choose from (photograph.hu, topfoto.hu and fotozz.hu) as far as feedback is concerned. Photograph is more of a joint blog, topfoto appreciates nature above the rest, and fotozz offers everything from total bullshit to excellent in-depth critique. My photo in question got quite good feedback on fotozz, which came as a suprise. If you are Hungarian, don't speek much English and in need of feedback, fotozz is still the place to go. With their ingenious screening and evaluation system, topfoto could be even better (a Hungarian 1X) but it's more for tack-sharp bird shots than other kinds of photography.

Next time I'll test some webhosting services, like one.com and smugmug.

By the way... I got into contact with an old buddy who blogs on http://inphoto.blog.hu. He asked me how I like his blog (actually, his first question after 7 years of no contact was: "oh hi! have you seen the new Leica M9?" - now that's what I call fanatic!). I told him he'd reach a much bigger audience if he wrote in English, as the interest in cameras with a 13000 $ price tag is not really hot in Hungary nowadays. We agreed to start a joint project - he will write the posts on shiny Leicas and stuff like that, I'll translate, we'll get dirty filthy rich by Google Adwords and then move to some godforsaken Caribian island resort and photograph piña coladas for the rest of our life. Or something similar.

2010-01-26T00:34:00.003+01:00

I've had enough of Onexposure (www.1x.com and http://1x.com/member/17030/balazs-pataki). For a year, this site was my bread and butter but eventually I got tired of rejections. You know, to publish a photograph there it first goes through screening, and... well, theoretically I'd say "if it's good enough, it will be published" but I no longer understand what's considered "good" there. The smallest common denominator of published images is that they are nice and sharp. So far so good, but I paid 99 $ a year to see my photos rejected, and now it seems that I'm a masochist who's willingly paying for getting frustrated. True, you get a homepage for your bucks but - and this is why I'll cancel my membership - you can have much better hosting service for much less elsewhere. They have an excellent Critique channel though which is probably the best on the net for feedback on your shots, but I don't believe in the use of photo critique any longer. It's always the "crop here, darken there, sharpen overthere" bullshit. One could use a critique-generator and it would be as useful as it gets. This equally applies to the critiques I write. It just doesn't make sense.
Anyway, my own site is under preparation now, in the meantime I made an experiment. I posted the same image to photo.net, photosig, deviantart, fotocommunity and two Hungarian sites, just to compare the feedback received.

2010-01-22T00:08:00.002+01:00

Ma ezeket szedtem elő a tavalyi archívumból:

Ezek a képek nem jöhettek volna létre, ha Fehér Béla nem ír olyannyira végtelenül szórakoztatóan, hogy még a zavaró tényezőt is ki tudtam vele iktatni az estémből.

2010-01-18T22:42:00.004+01:00

I'm thinking about a new project this year: "Roots of reggae" - getting down to Kingston and checking out what's beyond the dreadlock-sunshine-ganja trinity. Just one of the 70 000 ideas that cross the human mind on an average day, of which 69 999 are forgotten instantly. We'll see. Maybe I'm just longing for sunshine and ganja and try to deceive myself.

Until then, long winter nights are good for editing old photographs.

Van la foudroyée

2010-01-13T16:39:00.006+01:00

Normally, I'm good at translating but I soon arrived at my limits when reading the beautiful poem by Artavazd. Even though I understand the feeling inspired by one of my photographs, and probably translating it would only mean to explain my feelings while looking down to this man-made Hiroshima - I can't. That's why Artavazd is a poet, and I'm not.

My favourite line: "Van la foudroyée elève son ultime chant", "Lightning-struck Van rises

to sing her last song", "A villám-sújtotta Van elénekli utolsó dalát".

http://armeniantrends.blogspot.com/2010/01/van.html

Approcher
Ces sables fuyants
En contrepoint
L’escarpement
Pietà blanche
Evanouie.
Fouler
A nouveau
Ces ruelles
Places, cours
Se perdre
Dédale
Où sourdent
Tant de cris
Soudain
Les formes
Ressurgissent
Regards, plis
Courbures
Ombres de corps.
Qui dira
Ce lent engloutissement
Si lointain
Familier
Aube d’Hiroshima
Où palpitent
Des foules
Anéanties.
Van la foudroyée
Elève
Son ultime chant.

How things are

2010-01-11T23:13:00.000+01:00

Miért fényképezünk?

2009-12-11T14:15:00.008+01:00

Amióta megvolt a könyvbemutatóm, furcsán másnapos hangulatban vagyok. Vagy nevezzem némileg perverzen szülés utáni depressziónak inkább? Nézek ki a fejemből és azon töprengek, akkor most hova tovább. Amatőr létemre anti-amatőr vagyok, mert nem önmagáért szeretem a fotózást, hanem azért amt ki tudok hozni belőle. Csinálom a képeket, felrakom a netre, többször bólintanak rá mint kevésszer, jönnek a visszajelzések - ez remek, ez nem jön be, ez lehetne jobb, mintha valami terméket teszteltetnék egy marketing-kampányban, aztán ott rohadnak valamelyik tárhelyen mint a boltok polcán és nagyjából ennyi volt. Nem ennyiről szól, de nem tudom mennyivel többről szólhatna. Ha már szülést mondtam: a gyerek legalább velünk van egy ideig, de a fotók azonnal elválnak tőlünk és önálló életre kelnek abban a pillanatban, hogy feltesszük valamelyik galériába, és többnyire fogalmunk sincs hogy aztán mi történik vele. Megfog valakit? Mond és jelent valamit valakinek? Még ha páran írnak is rá, ezek többnyire fotósok, és ugyanolyan kevéssé fotózunk a többi fotósnak, ahogy a pék sem a többi péknek süti a kenyeret. Akad-e olyan képünk amelyik kikerül a webgalériák kisvilágából és azon túl is megáll a lábán? Egyáltalán mi az, ami valamennyire igazolná azt a rengeteg pénzt, időt és energiát amit fotózásra fordítunk?

Eddigi legnagyobb fotós sikerélményem még 9 éve volt, amikor egy csoportos kiállításon éppen a rendezővel beszélgettem. Egy számomra ismeretlen spanja ráköszönt és azt mondta: az egész anyagból a "Nézőpontok" c. kép a legjobb. Ez volt az én képem, én meg csöndben mosolyogtam. Ez sokat jelentett. Nagyjából annyit jelentett, mint amit Speier Dávidnak jelenthetett amikor egyszer valakinek egy buliban azt magyaráztam hogy a magyar filmszinkron úgy szar ahogy van és egy szinkront csak az menthet meg ha a Speier Dávid írja mert az az ember egy zseni - anélkül hogy tudtam volna hogy éppen magához Speier Dávidhoz beszélek.

Szóval, gondoltam rákeresek a neten saját munkásságomra, hogy legalább lopják-e a képeimet meg hasonlók, és hoppá, ez ugrott az arcomba:

http://la-petite-ardechoise.over-blog.com/article-36051757.html

Egy blogger kiválasztotta egy képemet és "téma és variációk" alapon pályázatot hirdetett. S ezeket írta egy Francine nevű látogató:

Le Chef d’œuvre
L’ombre et la lumière, complices du photographe, lui obéissent. Le maître et le modèle auront disparu depuis longtemps que le chef-d’œuvre perdurera. Il bénéficiera peut-être d’une ou plusieurs restaurations grâce à la générosité d’un mécène, fier d’offrir la contemplation du chef d’œuvre aux générations successives d’admirateurs.
Le chef-d’œuvre inspirera d’autres artistes : peintres, dessinateurs, sculpteurs, musiciens, poètes, écrivains …
Il devient alors le noyau de toute création. L’ombre et la lumière le savent, eux, qui vivent le temps d’une galaxie.

Ezt sajna nem fordítom le, mert vakítóan önfényezés lenne. A lényeg, hogy megerősített abban a hitemben hogy van értelme csinálni. Csak megtalálni nehéz az ilyet. A boldogság, amit egy képünkkel adni tudunk, nem mérhető elismerő képértékelésekkel, kritikákkal, még pályázati díjakkal sem. (Sőt, azokkal főleg nem.) Azt hiszem minden alkotónak az a katasztrófája hogy a legtöbb, amit a műveivel adhat, számára láthatatlan marad. De ha csak egyetlen ilyen alkalom is akad, már megérte csinálni és talán élni is. Hüpp.

Karabah III

2009-11-26T14:17:00.008+01:00

Egyik este eszembe jutott, hogy kéne háborúsveterános portrét csinálni és megkérdeztem Arman haveromat hogy nincs-e ilyen ismerőse a nagyon de nagyon sok kitüntetéses fajtából. Természetesen volt. Arman mindenkit ismer és mindent el tud intézni. Nem is kellett sokat keresnie, a saját főnöke ugyanis tökéletes modell (és mellesleg a hegyi-karabahi katonai rendőrség parancsnoka). Reggel el is mentünk az irodájába, ahol az egyetlen dísz egy Richter Gedeon falinaptár volt, és miközben a tévében egy régi partizános film ment, annak rendje s módja szerint le is fotóztam.

Valami ilyesmit akartam, de közben rájöttem hogy a tévét is belekomponálva a képbe az abszurditás felhő magasságába emelhetem a jelenetet.

A következő állomás egy öregek otthona volt. A kifogástalan öltönyt viselő igazgató új értelmet adott az "úriember" szónak és akkora karizmája volt, hogy abba az összes európai politikus belefért volna és még a mieinknek is bőven maradt volna hely. Telefonált egyet, mondta, hogy akit keresünk mindjárt itt lesz, addig is nézzük meg a szomszédos múzeumot.

A múzeumról kiderült, hogy a háborúban elesett katonák emlékhelye. Volt ott azonban más is: egy tárlóban olyan tárgyakat mutattak, amiket a szumgaiti és bakui pogromok elől menekülő örmények vittek magukkal. Nyilván a legfontosabb, legkedvesebb dolgaikat. Köztük egy bűvös kocka. A kés és a lőszer ne tévesszen meg senkit, az már egy hősi halotté volt.

Közben előkerült az emberünk: egy apró, vénséges de fürge eszű öregember, Aram Martiroszjan gárdafőhadnagy. 18 évesen tankvezetőként került a Vörös Hadseregbe, ahol a háború végéig 23 érdemrendet gyűjtött be. Utolsó kitüntetését az örmény-azeri háborúban szerezte 70 évesen. Ahogy ő mondta: "hallottam, hogy az oroszoktól kaptunk tankokat, de nem volt aki vezesse. Elmentem a laktanyába és felajánlottam hogy majd én kiképzem a fiainkat, hogyan kell tankot vezetni." Így is lett. Egyébként a témára vonatkozó leghitelesebb könyv szerint az örmények tényleg annyira nulláról indultak, hogy a páncélosaik eleinte úgy mentek harcba hogy azt sem tudták hogyan kell elsütni az ágyút.

A falakat végig, padlótól a mennyezetig halott katonák fényképei borították. Miközben ezzel a háttérrel fényképeztem a főhadnagy urat, a múzeum igazgatónője, aki végig ott sündörgött körülöttünk, az egyik tárlóból kivett egy megsárgult fotót amint mit tesz Isten éppen az én emberem volt látható fiatal korában.

A fényképről pedig kiderült, hogy annak is külön története van. Martiroszjan úrnak volt egy fiatal rokona, aki bálványozta őt és a példáját követve ő is páncélos akart lenni. Be is állt a hadseregbe, el is esett. A főhadnagy fényképe így került a halottak tárgyaival zsúfolt tárlóba.

Mindezt tényszerűen, hatásvadászat nélkül közölték, mintha arról beszéltek volna hogy a múlt héten esett az eső de most már jó idő van. Kicsit konyítok a haditechnikához, és amikor Martiroszjan úr rájött hogy bennem értő közönségre talált, véget nem érő előadásba kezdett a T-34 és a Sherman tank előnyeiről és hátrányairól, majd bónuszként még egy harci dalt is elénekelt. Ezúttal sajnáltam hogy már nem az 5DMkII van velem, mert nem tudtam videóra venni pedig de jó lett volna.

Aztán, a hölgy úgy mellékesen megfogta a karomat, az egyik falhoz vezetett, és a sok közül az egyik képre mutatva azt mondta: az a sapkás, az volt a fiam.

Ez volt az a pillanat amikor - hogy is mondjam - kissé elhomályosult a fényképezőgépem keresője. A következő terem még súlyosabb volt. Ahogy a hölgy magyarázta: "A fiamnak volt egy szerelme akit a háború után feleségül akart venni. Már az esküvő ruhákat is megvettük. Nézze ezeket a képeket: csupa fiatal katona, a legtöbbjük még nem is volt házas. Sokáig gyászoltam a fiamat, aztán eszembe jutott, lélekben megházasítom. Őt és a többit. Ezt a tárlót nekik készítettem, ez az ő esküvőjük." Mivel jobban értem mint beszélem az oroszt, csak gondolatban tettem hozzá: nemcsak a fiúké, hanem azé a több tucatnyi lányé is akinek a képe szintén ott volt a falon.

A múzeum egyébként nem volt valami didaktikus azeri-ellenességre kihegyezve, ez amúgy sem jellemző Karabahra. Az irodában ki voltak rakva a Vöröskereszt vastag dossziéi mind az örmény, mint az azeri és más áldozatokról, eltűntekről.

Only the dead have seen the end of war, mondtam Armannak a kocsiba visszaülve. Sto?, felelte ő. Tolka mertvije vigyeli konyec vojni, fordítottam oroszra. Csak a halottak látták a háború végét. Arman megvonta a vállát, aztán gázt adott a BMW-nek és elmentünk kebabot ebédelni.

Karabah II

2009-11-25T11:38:00.016+01:00

Jobb dolgom nem lévén, a reggeli konyakozás közben sorra vettem azokat a látnivalókat amiket még nem láttam. Ezeket a reggeli konyakozásokat úgy kell elképzelni, hogy az apósom reggelente lement a pincébe és befőttesüvegben hozta fel a minimum húsz éves konyakot, amit dióval, kávéval és cigarettával illik fogyasztani. Ez a dió-konyak-kávé felállás annyira kiváló volt, hogy a délelőtt folyamán többször is meg kellett ismételni. Mást nem is nagyon lehetett csinálni, mert pocsék volt az idő. Úgy kb a negyedik után eszembe jutott hogy Shushiban van egy múzeum amit még nem láttam. Nivába be, kettesbe be, ablakot le, Shushiba fel.

A múzeum persze zárva volt, de a gondnok és Angelika nevű unokája kárpótolt. Legalább végre embert is tudtam fényképezni.

Az idő esős volt és ködös, de délutánra kiderült az ég és séta közben erre a vidám kis freskóra bukkantam Sztepanakertben. Valamiért megtetszett.

Másnap végre kiderült az ég, és mivel apósomnak szabadnapja volt, rögtönöztünk egy kirándulást Dadivank és Kelbadzsár felé. Sztepanakerttől észak felé haladva szép kilátás nyílik a Szangar folyó völgyére, amit most vastagon borított a köd.

Mire leértünk, felszállt a köd. Az agyamban még mindig Ladak kopárságával kifejezetten üdítő volt az ősztől már megfestett, dús erdőkben járni. A legszebb dolog Karabahban a táj és az érintetlen erdők.

Többször megálltunk pihenni, és miközben fotóztam, csak az apósom diadalmas kiáltásai törték meg a csendet. Ezek a kiáltások azt jelentették hogy valami számomra ismeretlen erdei növényt meg bogyót talált, amiből kitűnő teát vagy lekvárt lehet készíteni. Nem egy elveszett ember.

Igazából az "érintetlen" szó nem igazán a legtalálóbb erre a vidékre. A karabahi háborúban voltak hősies napok, amikor az elején a karabahi és azeri örmények házi készítésű fegyverekkel próbáltak védekezni a pogromok és falurombolás ellen; voltak szürreális napok, mint amikor az azeriek kilóra megvettek egy fél orosz tankhadosztályt és majdnem elfoglalták Sztepanakertet, ha ugyanannak az orosz hadosztálynak a páncéltörő tüzérsége, amit viszont az örmények vettek meg kilóra, nem állítja meg őket az utolsó pillanatban; és voltak tragikus napok, mint itt Kelbadzsár és Martakert között, amikor az örmény reguláris hadsereg napokon át rakétákkal lőtte a járhatatlan hágók miatt hazajutni képtelen, a keskeny völgyekbe szorult azeri csapatokat. Ezekben a szép erdőkben azóta is még több száz temetetlen azeri katona lehet; apósom szerint a helyi lakosok - akik mind Azerbajdzsánból menekültek - minden tavasszal, amikor felenged a hó, újabb és újabb holttesteket találnak. Mielőtt azonban könnyeket ejtenénk szegény azerikért, egy adalék: az is ebben a völgyben történt, még a konfliktus legelején, hogy az azeri rendőrség szovjet OMON kommandókkal megerősítve bevonult az örmény falvakba, mindenkitől elvették a személyi igazolványt, majd a lakosokat mint "személyi igazolvánnyal nem rendelkező elemeket" deportálták és leromboltak minden házat.

Ahogy a Hobo Blues Band énekelte: Mesél az erdő, mesél az erdő...

Ilyen tájban jutunk el Dadivankba. A kolostor valamikor Karabah legszebb és legromantikusabb látványossága volt, aztán renoválták, és mára úgy néz ki - kívülről legalábbis - mint egy középkori kosztümös hollywoodi film díszlete. Legalábbis ahhoz a vadregényes állapothoz képest, ahogy még az útikönyvekben szerepel. Az ilyen renoválásokban nyilvánul meg legjobban, mennyire keleti az örmény lélek. Számunkra nyugatiaknak az építészet annak kifejezése, hogy egy adott korban hogyan viszonyulunk a világhoz, pontosabban a térhez. Mást fejez ki egy gótikus és egy barokk templom, ma pedig eszünkbe sem jutna román stílusú templomokat építeni, mert már nem úgy látjuk a világot, ahogy a román korban. Ha régi templomot restaurálunk, azt restauráljuk és nem újjáépítjük. Még a romantika neogótikája is csak arról szólt, hogy mi a XIX. századi fejünkkel milyennek látjuk a gótikus kort, lásd Mátyás-templom és Halászbástya. Az örmények viszont nem hogy a romos templomokat is az eredeti stílusban építik újjá, olyan szinten hogy néha meg nem lehet mondani melyik részlet az eredeti és melyik az új, hanem az újakat is az ezerhétszáz éves stílusban építik. Egyrészt mert ez a kánon: szinte minden örmény templom azt a mintát követi, amit Megvilágosító Szent Gergely látott egy látomásban, akár ezer épült akár idén. Másrészt ha valami szép, azon minek újítani? Az idő ott másképp múlik, és korszakai sokkal kevésbé határozzák meg a gondolkodást mint nálunk.

Dadivankban található az örmény kőfaragó-művészet talán legszebb alkotása, ez a kettős, XIII. századi kőkereszt. A híres "kacskar" a hiedelemmel ellentétben legtöbbször nem sírkő, hanem fogadalmi és emlékmű, szerepe leginkább a mi régi útszéli Mária-szobrainkra és feszületeinkre emlékeztet.

Szerencsére az elszánt és nem túl jó minőségű (bár persze jó szándékú) restaurálás a templom belsejét még nem érintette. Vaskos középkori hangulat árad minden kőből.

Amit buldózerrel sem lehet tönkretenni, az Dadivank fekvése.

Készítettem pár fotót, különösebb meggyőződés nélkül (tavaly már egyszer szénné fotóztam a kolostort), aztán indultunk is tovább Kelbadzsár felé.

Kelbadzsár az egyetlen hely ahol még nem jártam Karabahban (mármint az egyszerű halandók által megközelíthető helyek közül), és azt is reméltem hogy viszontláthatok egy jó arcot akit tavaly ismertem meg Noravankban.

Albert nemhogy kaliforniai, de ráadásul még hollywoodi is. Amikor ráunt Amerikára, Kelbadzsárba költözött, illetve amikor éppen nem ott konyakozik, az örményországi Harley-Davidson klubot alapítgatja már évek óta. Valószinűleg nincs annyi örmény harley-s hogy elegen legyenek egy klubhoz (akinek ott van pénze, Hummert vesz nem motort...). Mondani sem kell hogy nem találtam meg, sőt még senki nem is hallott róla, pedig Kelbadzsár csak egy kis falu.

Akármi is Albert valódi sztorija, a csöndes és világtól totálisan távoleső falucska nem rossz választás annak aki ki akar vonulni a világból. Ahogy maga Karabah is. Bevallom, én is sokkal nyugodtabban nézem a világot amióta tudom, hogy van egy kis zug ahová elvonulhatok ha egyszer elegem lesz mindenből, de tényleg.

Aznap azonban megint egy kiadós esti lakoma várt, így visszaindultunk Sztepanakertbe. Végig a gyönyörű, csalóka módon békés völgyön...

...majd este gondoskodtunk róla hogy másnap az apósnak újabb befőttesüvegnyi konyakot kelljen felhoznia a pincéből. S azt hittem hogy most már hogy Kelbadzsár is megvolt, végképp nem lesz mit csinálnom de szerencsére tévedtem. Még hátra volt egy találkozás ami jobban megfogott mint India minden szent embere együttvéve, és nekem, aki vidám helló-hellót integetve tudok átlépni a legeltorzultabb testű indiai kolduson is, és még a borjúsültet is véresen szeretem, sosem ajánlom fel adóm egy százalékát a rákos gyerekeknek és bizony ráütök a pici lányom pici kezére ha photoshoppolás közben megnyomja meg a resetgombot, képes volt könnyeket csalni a szemembe.

PS: A videóért (klikk a linkre Kelbadzsárnál) ezer köszönet nagyerzsinek.

Karabah I

2009-11-24T10:49:00.012+01:00

Na szóval. Kicsit gondban vagyok, mert India után ez a túra egy körúti séta volt, meg nem is túl izgalmas, de tegnap este kisebb szívinfarktust kaptam - nem jutott eszembe egy magyar szó. Olyan szavak tolultak a nyelvemre mint Duvel, Hoegarden, Rochefort, Vedett, Chimay, Ciney, Straffe Hendrik, de az, hogy sör, már nem. Kezdek elfelejteni magyarul. Úgyhogy gyakorlásként a karabahi örmény sztorit most magyarul.

Az elmúlt 9 évben sokat utaztam Örményországba a fotóalbum végett, és Hegyi-Karabahot is töviről hegyire és elejétől a végéig végigfotóztam, így ez a mostani út tényleg inkább volt családlátogatás mint lonelyplaneti értelemben vett utazás. Az örményországi képeimből egy másik galériámban láthattok képeket (http://armeniangallery.blogspot.com/), illetve hálistennek már nyomtatásban is.

Két napom volt hogy a Londonban összeszedett amőbás mizériát kipurgáljam a gyomromból, aztán október 7-én már repültem is Moszkvába, ahol az egyik bárban sör- és kávéinfúzióra kötöttem magamat, hogy valahogy túléljem a hajnali, öt órás várakozást a jereván csatlakozásra.

Az eredeti terv szerint valami bombasztikus könyvbemutatóm lett volna a jereváni főpolgármester díszvendégeként. Ez a nyomda párnapos csúszása miatt kútba esett, ráadásul a kiadóm pont akkor hívott fel ezzel a rossz hírrel amikor Rampurban a hegyomlások között ingáztunk, csak hogy még jobb legyen a kedvem. Mármost ehhez képest az örmények először be sem akartak engedni az országba, ugyanis az útlevelemre az van írva hogy ÚTLEVÉL és nem az hogy PASSPORT, ezért nem hitték el róla, hogy útlevél. Valahogy sikerült meggyőznöm a határőröket hogy nem azerbajdzsáni hamsítványról van szó és én sem vagyok török titkosügynök, így nemsokára úton voltam Karabah felé. Ezúttal - sajnos - nem saját kocsival, hanem taxival. Fáradt is voltam, az útnak majdnem minden kilométerét lefotóztam már korábban, így csak félóránként kellett megállni fotózni. Azt is inkább azért hogy megszakítsuk a monoton, unalmas vezetést.

Jerevántól Karabahig 400 km az út és 5-6 órát vesz igénybe. Hegyi-Karabah az örmények Székelyföldje, amely Moszkva parancsára került a húszas években Azerbaidzsánhoz. A karabahi örmények története ismerős: egykor autonómia, majd kulturális-nyelvi elnyomás, falurombolás, betelepítés. A folytatást valahogy úgy kell elképzelni, mintha a székelyek gerillaháborút kezdtek és Magyarország a harcokba beavatkozva elfoglalta volna Észak-Erdélyt. Gyakorlatilag pontosan így zajlott le az örmény-karabahi-azeri háború a kilencvenes évek első felében. Sokszor eszembe jut, hogy ennek a frusztrált szegény Magyarországnak egy nagy, kollektív orgazmus hiányzik, ami talán az lehetett volna, ha húsz évvel ezelőtt összeszedjük magunkat és visszavesszük azt am a miénk, ha nem is Székelyföldet, de a Vajdaságot vagy a Felvidéket. Ez lehetett volna az a kollektív öröm, ami egybeforraszthatta volna a mi végletesen megosztott országunkat. És ezt az elméletemet csípőből meg is cáfolja az, amit Örményországban és Karabahban láttam: a rövid eufóriát felváltotta a kölcsönös bizalmatlanság, a győzelem mámorát a következményekkel való sokkszerű szembesülés - a határok lezárása Törökország által, a gazdasági embargó, az ipar totális padlózása. A győztes háború végeredményben csak a problémákat szaporította. Az örmények lassan, de biztosan másznak ki a gödörből (költőien mondva: Jerevánban már magasra nőttek azok a fák, amiket a tüzelőnek kivágott parkok helyén ültettek), de a háború és a válság olyan mély sebeket hagyott maga után, amelyek gyógyulása még évtizedekig fog tartani. S nem tabu azt kérdezni, hogy végül is miért kellett több ezernyi örmény katonának meghalnia Karabahért és vajon nem fizettek-e túl nagy árat egy kis sikeres nacionalizmusért. A karabahiak, akiknek a nyelvi, kulturális sőt végül fizikai fennmaradása közvetlen veszélyben volt, természetesen nem így látják a helyzetet, azt is tudják hogy Örményország nélkül a kis államuk nem lenne életképes, de ezzel együtt sem rajonganak az anyaországbeli örményekért. Az egész annyira, de annyira emlékeztet a magyar-székely viszonyra - hatelove, ahogy az angolok mondják.

Szóval, haladtunk, haladtunk a hegyek felé. Első utazásom alkalmával Törökországból, Grúzián érkeztem Örményországba, így hát láthattam már pár szép dél-kaukázusi tájat, de a Jereván-Sztepanakert út a legszebbek közt van.

Az már más probléma hogy a karabahi fővárosban, Sztepanakertben nem sok a látnivaló. Épül-szépül, de a keleti sárm mellett még mindig van egy bizonyos poszt-szovjet fíling, ami leginkább kedvenc videojátékomra, a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-re emlékeztet, ami a lepukkant Csernobil környékén játszódik.

Tavaly volt a nagy karabahi sztalkerezés ideje, idén a fő program egy kis pogány megkeresztelése volt. Ehhez nem is találhattunk volna szebb helyszínt, mint Karabah leghíresebb látványosságát, a gandzaszári kolostort.

A családi videóktól megkíméllek titeket. Alapjában véve vicces volt, mert a hosszú szertartás alatt a családnak folyton ismételnie kellett a pap szavait (aki egyébként jól jövedelmező orvosi egzisztenciáját hagyta ott a szerzetességért), és szóltak hogy én is tegyek így. Próbáltam komoly arcot vágni és mormolgattam az ó-örmény szavakat, amelyekből csak az ahavor volt ismerős, de lövésem se volt hogy pontosan miért is került a litániába a szörnyű szó. Gondoltam, szörnyű démonokról meg kísértésről meg hasonlókról volt szó. Kínos zavaromat látva, a galád család alig bírta visszafojtani a nevetést. Képzeljetek el egy örményt, aki egy magyar keresztelőn próbálja ismételni amit a pap mond. A kis pogánynak azonban nem volt nevethetnékje, a végére konkrétan annyira bömbölt hogy azt hittem, szétrepeszti a vén falakat.

De nem kellett szégyenkeznem. A szertartás végén megkérdeztem a feleségemet, ugyan mit is beszélt a pap? Mire ő: óóó fogalmam sincs, ez a templomi nyelv annyira más mint a mai hogy alig értettem belőle valamit.
Miután Jézus nyája új báránykával gazdagodott, és az após elintézte az ilyenkor szokásos bárányáldozattal kapcsolatos adminisztrációt (megjegyzem: van akit taszítanak ezek az archaikus szoksások, de nekem inkább imponálnak, ráadásul mi magyarok a rituális disznóvágásunkkal jobb ha nem akadunk fenn az ilyesmin) levezető gyakorlatként megnéztünk a környéken egy... nem is tudom minek mondjam, zon otduh az orosz neve, ez amolyan pihenőhelyet jelent étteremmel meg ilyesmikkel.

Ez az izé, oroszlánbarlang vagy minek nevezzem, a háború alatt a helyi gerillák főhadiszállása volt, aztán kissé átépítették.

A fő látványosság egy állatkert volt. Mármost nem vagyok egy elszánt állatvédő, de amkor a kartondoboz méretű ketrecekbe bezsúfolt medvéket, farkasokat meg oroszlánokat láttam (meg hiúzt!), komolyan megfájdult a szívem.

Elhiszem hogy nem lehet mindenhol ultra-öko-bio állatkerteket építeni, meg szerencsétlen helyi kiskölköknek ez az egy esélyük van oroszlánt meg farkast meg medvét látni élőben, nade akkor is. Természetesen megint megkaptam hogy nekem itt semmi sem jó, és hiába próbáltam a nejemet meggyőzni hogy attól hogy szeretem az állatokat, még nem kell utálnom Karabahot.

Na mindegy. A nagy nap végén a kertből felszálló füstjelek tudatták, hogy készül a vacsora.

Hús hússal. Az örmények rajonganak a parázson sült húsért, örményül khorovac, ami magyarul ugye barbecue. Sok vodkával, borral sörrel leöntve, sült zöldséggel és friss kenyérrel. Az örmény konyha nagyon jó, nekem viszont idefelé kiesett az egyik fogtömésem, a másik oldalon meg begyulladt az ínyem, így hiába tartott még mindig az Indiából magammal hozott proteinéhség, a rágás komoly kihívás elé állított. Mondtam is a családnak szomorúan: egész úton erről a lüle-kebabról álmodtam, aztán most itt van a tányéromon, farkaséhes is vagyok, és mégsem bírom megenni.

Szomorúságomnak más oka is volt. Mndenki kérdezgette, na mi van a könyvvel? Én meg kínosan szabadkoztam hogy hát ööö készen van meg ööö nyomdában van de sajnos nem tudtam még egy példányt sem hozni, ööö. A másik ok, hogy azt kívántam: bárcsak lenne itt Soni a Scorpióval. Ugyanis mit lehet Karabahban csinálni? Kimozdulni a természetbe, kis kolostorokat felfedezni a hatalmas erdőkben, élvezni a tájat. Ehhez autó kell, ami nem volt. Sajnáltam hogy ezúttal nem béreltem autót, és fogalmam sem volt, hogy a fennmaradó tíz napban mit fogok Sztepanakert cityben csinálni. Főleg hogy már mindent láttam, ami Karabahban aknakereső és lánctalpas terepjáró nélkül felkereshető.

Folytatás hamar...

(Utóirat: elvileg az örményországi fotóprojektem részeként mentem Karabahba, ahol a helyi vízumot a sztepanakerti külügyminisztérumban kellett megvennem, és a vízumlapot kitöltő lányka lett a feleségem. Ez a hangulatától függően hol életem legjobb, hol legrosszabb döntése volt...)

Meghívó

2009-11-20T16:39:00.002+01:00

Ezt is megértük.

Szolgálati közlemény

2009-11-19T02:09:00.006+01:00

Elkezdtem a normálisabb képeket felpakolni az indiai galériámba.
Hamarosan nekiállok az idei hegyi-karabahi kirándulásról is beszámolni. Ilyenek lesznek:

"...és ő ott, ő volt a fiam."

Meg ilyenek:
Meg ilyenek:

Közben gorasahab álnéven írtam egy beszámolót az ONGO-n pár képpel, másnap mit látok? Ott figyelek a címoldalon és a T. Szerk művészinek titulálta a képeimet. A mai ínséges időkben - gazdasági válság meg hasonlók - minden kis elismerésnek örülni kell, így hát köszi a szerkesztőknek, nem mondom hogy nem esett jól (bár nem török fotóművészi babérokra).