Landings 2018 - showcasing work

Landings is an online event so I had to come up with a way to showcase my work. Having a dire experience in trying to set something up in wordpress in module 1, the first idea that came to my mind was to set up a blog. Then I decided that a blog would not look right alongside the work of all other colleagues who had taken a lot of time to think over their ideas and select the best one. I had to work quickly since I was late already so I resorted to something I am comfortable with.

Since these days I had to do a lot on my personal website and the Culture Crossroads project site, my first idea was to create one for Landings, too. Building a webiste once you have an idea what you want to do is quite easy and here is the way that site look like now. I wanted something plain and easy to navigate.

This is how the home page looks like and the link to the site is below.

https://bistrastoimenova.wixsite.com/landings2018

The downside of having to use the free version of a website builder is that the site has no mobile version and there are ads displayed at the top of the page. That was quite the unpleasant surprise but since all my sites are done with this same website builder, I would probably buy a subscription plan at a later stage (and that would remove the ads from all sites). 

Another thing I did to showcase my work was to share the exhibition materials all over my social media platforms so that people know it is there. I also shared the website link. Another strategy I plan to use is to share each image from the exhibition and the story behind it. That takes a bit more time, however, so I'll do this one at a time (hoping to attract more people even after the exhibition is over).  

Landings 2018 - selecting a theme

Since I was a latecomer to Landings, I virtually had no time to think or create new content for it. So, of all topics available, I decided on using work i have created using some work I have created already.

I chose Expressions of Consequence since when I posted that image on social media, it attracted quite a lot of attention - the place is amazing but the consequence of the neglect is that you can only marvel at it through the fence as access to the insides is denied. 

For Landings 2018, I chose to focus on the Expressions of Consequence  theme since most of the work I have done during the past module. In module 2, I chose to focus on crumbling urban architecture, mostly from the 20th century but not only. That is how the Beyond the Postcard mini project was born - showing the fate of beautiful abandoned buildings across the Balkans.

The whole idea was to document abandoned places around the Balkans and this one is maybe the best of them in terms of story.

The stories are many but maybe the most striking is that of the cover image. This house belonged to one of the richest people in Bulgaria - a wealthy banker - and  was known as 'the house with the strawberries' because of the decorative strawberries in the front yard. Throughout the years it has been a lot of things, even a movie set in the 1990s. However, after 1989, the house was sold and the new owner left it to rot. This is generally illegal since the place is a monument BUT if the place crumbles, the space can be used to build an office building which can bring much money. 

​With the work featured in Beyond the Postcard, I want to draw attention to what normal tourists rarely see and that each picture-perfect place has two faces - one good and one no one sees, except the locals. Crumbling buildings are often historical monuments - places where famous people lived and loved. They should be preserved instead of being demolished or left to rot. 

People rarely notice such buildings. However, once a picture of the place is shared on social media. it immediately becomes extremely popular and noticed. 

Critical contextualization of my work - inspiration talk - part 2

After talking about the stunning work of Zdravko Yonchev in the previous post, I turned to other projects about abandoned places. I am aware that shooting abandoned and decaying buildings is really popular worldwide but to get the critical context (and the necessary visual information) to do the Beyond the Postcard mini project, I needed to go local. 

I came across the Abandoned Bulgaria Instagram feed and loved the idea that maybe someone else before me has done the thing and hence I can use the information they have stored (the way I did with the Fading Sofia project). So I hurried to check out their Facebook.

I found loads of images and even more followers. 

Fig. 1 

The images that are available on their feed are not the thing I am looking for and do not carry the same amount of  emotion as the works of Yonchev. Abandoned Bulgaria aims for a more documentary approach - snapping a pic of what is there and adding an Instagram filter at most. 

This is partially explained by the fact that the project is maintained by a group of enthusasts, none of which is an actual photographer. 

They rarely give titles to their works and even less often they give some information about the place (unlike Yonchev who had researched the back story of all his subjects and takes the care to include it in some of his posts, at least). 

Fig. 2

So, even though I love the idea of having someone else doing the research for me, I think that the thing I aim at is much more closer to the works of Younchev than to this documentary style. I aim at showing the emotion of the place, at least that's the idea - not to have snapshots but images that tell stories. 

References: 

Abandoned in Bulgaria project Facebook page, available at: https://www.facebook.com/exbulgaria [accessed 20 March 2018]

List of figures:

Figure 1 – ExBulgaria -  untitled, 2017

Available at:

https://www.facebook.com/exbulgaria/photos/a.1508796799149620.1073742002.779299025432738/1508796915816275/?type=3&theater [accessed 20 March 2018]

Figure 2 – ExBulgaria -  The old shoe factory in Dobrich town, 2017

Available at:

https://www.facebook.com/exbulgaria/photos/a.779350662094241.1073741837.779299025432738/1973841419311820/?type=3&theater [accessed 20 March 2018]

Critical contextualization of my work - inspiration talk - part 1

In the previous post I wrote about scope and how much I kicked against narrowing it down. That's how I came up the the subsection of Culture Crossroads' Admire Architecture section - Beyond the postcard. 

The whole idea of the mini project being to photograph some abandoned buildings around Sofia - since I have no time to go around the country this time - and compile them into a meaningful portfolio. So far, so good BUT (somehow, in anything I write, there is always that big 'but' thing) how do you do a coherent body of work on something you've never done consistently before?

Whenever I come across an abandoned place, I'm likely to photograph it. However, this has been only a by-product of my other work - say, I go somewhere to see the sights and I notice something crumbing around. So when my tutors told me I had to talk a bit more about the theoretical framework of my project, one part of me wanted to get out, run to the nearest corner or basement and then scream at the top of its lungs. Why? Because Bulgarian educational system has taught me to resent theory in all its forms. When you spent most of your life (from age 7 till now) memorizing which old scholar discovered which theory (now invalid but still in the textbook so you need to know it for the exam) and do nothing more than just memorize and memorize, at some point you discover that memorizing what is in the textbook will not make you compatible on the labour market and what you actually need is practice. 

As I mentioned in some previous post, I've learned photography by trial and error (I've read some books on composition and so on but it's one thing to read and gawk at whatever some other colleague has done and to do it yourself) so in this post I am NOT GOING TO TALK about theory. Mainly because the very word gives me a rash and an association with the 500-page Phonology textbook I had to memorize in the second year of English Philology at Sofia University (the book is quite meaningful, by the way BUT only if you are a phonetician already).

So in this post, I'll BE TALKING ABOUT INSPIRATION. Who, what, how and when inspired me to take on abandoned places as a subject. 

Bulgaria is full of abandoned places - from old Communist buildings to new hotels on the seaside, the crumbling things are all around. Bulgarians have the weird tendency to leave to rot things which other cultures would cherish, restore and profit from. But I never said we are smart, as a mentality. 

Here is the ideal example of how things should work but don't and my first encounter with the abandoned. 

This is the former Communist party headquarters at Buzludza peak, Bulgaria. The first time I saw 'the flying saucer' as the thing is known in Bulgaria, I was only 8 years old. At the time, I couldn't even conceptualize what this thing was. Years later, I came across some amazing images of the insides of the place, taken by a foreigner in winter: 

Source is unknown since 99% of Bulgarians tend to download an image from Google images and then state 'source: Internet'. So, the only thing I can quote here is the article (in Bulgarian only BUT full of other images of the place - some old and some new - to see the state of decay)
http://webstage.bg/izchezvashtata-balgariya/307-buzludzha-ruinite-na-srama-ili-arhitekturen-fenomen.html

These are the insides of the place - according to an architect, created on purpose to mock any symbol used in a Christian Eastern Orthodox church. So, when I took to photography, I decided to revisit the place. But about this a bit later. My point was that this place was my first-ever encounter with the abandoned. At the time I was just a child so I'm not sure if it actually counts but still, that's one of my first memories. 

Last year, I went to visit an exhibition - at the time, May 2016, I already thought of myself as a photographer, a professional at that, and had started to demand the respect and money for my time and services. This exhibition was my first encounter with quality photographs of abandoned places. Actually, it wasn't even my idea - a friend wanted to go so I went to do two things - take pictures of all the images for her to see and admire the pics and try to find out more about the photographer and his style. By that time I had a few pictures of abandoned places myself, but they were the exception, rather than the rule. 

I went to the exhibition and saw this image: 

Fig. 1
Copyright: Zdravko Yonchev

This is by far my favourite image of an abandoned place in Bulgaria (apart from Buzludza). When I saw this, my jaw dropped and I decided that my friend should definitely see this. So I took around 50 images of this one alone to make sure I got it right. This is an abandoned house in Sofia and this guy managed to sneak in. The orb is actually part of a chandelier.

That was my first formal encounter with images of abandoned buildings so I kept looking and many more came out as amazing: 

Fig. 2 The baths at Bankya - a small town near Sofia. Been abandoned for the past 50 or 60 years.
The copyright is the same as the previous one.

Fig. 3 Another amazing image from an iconic abandoned house in Sofia - the house with the strawberries (named after the decorative strawberries in the front yard).
Copyright is the same.

I went round and round the photos, took a photo of each one and even got to meet the author and talk about how to get in such places and what to bring etc. I was so fascinated by his works (again, his name is Zdravko Yonchev and here are his website and Facebook page) that I decided one day to try out some of these places and see if I can do something at all. If I would ever do something abandoned, I wanted my work to be as stunning as his. 

As much as I love Yonchev's work, I cannot do some of the things he does - mainly because I don't want to end up in the police station. Otherwise I still admire the 'air of serenity' and the whole emotion they create - as if the visitors have just left the room or - the opposite - that the place has been long neglected.

I am not a fan of style copying but I definitely adopted some of Yonhev's way of doing things - especially the use of excessive clarity to emphasize the details in the decaying buildings. Still, some of his style I don't approve of - because some images may look good after that kind of posr-processing while others simply do not. So I aim for a more moderate editing - closer to the real look of the place (because when you use the HDR the result catches the eye BUT it is obvious to all that the image had been heavily post-processed).

So, apart from the truly stunning work of Younchev, I needed something more .

References:

• Figure 1 – YONCHEV, Zdravko –  Green strawberries, 2015 Available at: https://www.facebook.com/ZdravkoYonchevPhotography/photos/a.682574571757186.1073741833.673989362615707/1086030978078208/?type=3&theater  [accessed 20 March 2018]
• Figure 2 – YONCHEV, Zdravko – untitled, 2015 Available at: https://www.facebook.com/ZdravkoYonchevPhotography/photos/a.682574571757186.1073741833.673989362615707/1085539638127342/?type=3&theater [accessed 20 March 2018]
• Figure 3 – YONCHEV, Zdravko – Bankya, 2015 Available at: https://www.facebook.com/ZdravkoYonchevPhotography/photos/a.1108451779169461.1073741870.673989362615707/1108451829169456/?type=3&theater [accessed 20 March 2018]

Work in Progress Portfolio - the stories behind the images

Location: Mirthios, Crete, Greece
State: abandoned
Age: looks like the house has been habitable a few years ago. Judging by the look of the place - maybe it was built in the 1980s.

The place is located in a mountain village in Crete. The village itself is small but it's just above a very famous resort - you can see it though the window. Many tourists come to the village because of the view and the great food BUT very few actually realize that these people are very poor (if not for tourism). The irony of the image is that place with the best view is actually abandoned.

I took this image by accident - was waling around the village and came to the top of the hill. My actual goal was to take a pic of the panorama but as I passed by this window it was at the same level as the street - I got goosebumps by what I saw through it. There is something eerie about this image - I expect a ghost to come out though one of the doors. I squeezed in the lens through the broken glass of the window and took a few photos - not many since the whole place made me feel quite scared.

In post-processing I did my best to show the great view through the window.

Location: Agathias, Crete, Greece
State: abandoned
Age: probably the beginning of the XX century

This is a recreation of an old shot. When I first came to Agathias in 2013, I was fascinated by this  old house, located in the backyard of your hotel. It is a wonderful example of how poor Cretans were - it is a really small house and several others are dotted around the village - some of them still habitable - you could still see an old couple siting in one of the two tiny rooms, watching TV.

So, when I came back in September, I wanted to recreate the shot.  It turned out that the place has grown ever worse and it's full of garbage (I suspect tourists have a lot to do with this). The place looks old and by the size and view of it, I guess it was built somewhere around the beginning of the XX century. Unlike the previous Cretan house, this one is much smaller, poorer and has stayed abandoned for a longer period of time.

I wanted to capture the barred window and the blue door and emphasized on texture in post-processing. The traditional white has turned to yellow-orange by time, rain and wind.

Location: Zlatograd, Bulgaria
State: abandoned
Age: probably the beginning of the XX century, end of the XIX century

Bulgaria village houses are way different than those in Greece due to difference in occupation, weather and geography. I found this house in the town of Zlatograd, south-eastern Bulgaria. It is just a few kilometers away from the border with Turkey and is famous for its ethnographic reserve status. This house, however, is not part of the ethnographic complex, even though it looks much more authentic and old than most of the houses that are actually in it.

It is a wonderful example of how village houses looked like a century ago - the first floor is usually used for cattle or storage space, while the upper floor is the actual living quarters of the family. In the area of Zlatograd, due to availability of stone, the lower floor is made of stone while the walls on the upper floor are made of branches and mud (it's a simple technique but I am not sure I can explain it coherently in English). The fence around the house is also made of stone.

I loved the unparaded authenticity of that house. Zlatograd is full of placed where culture in history is just put in your face (even though it is not as old or as authentic judging from the new facades) while this place, just a few steps away from the tourist path, looks like it has a lot to share.

It was locked and totally impenetrablе. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any locals to tell me the story of the place.

Location: Zlatograd, Bulgaria
State: abandoned
Age: probably the end of the XX century

These two images are from one and the same place I found in the contemporary part of Zlatograd. It is interesting since I didn't expect the local branch of the tobacco company (as you can see on the first image - the sign reads 'Bulgartabak (short from Bulgarian Tobacco company), storage and assortment facility Smoliyan - the closest bigger town - branch Zlatograd'). It is strange to find a place like this abandoned because tobacco is one of the most common crops and sources of income in the area. The sign reminded me of a classical Bulgarian book, also called Tobacco, by Dimitar Dimov. It is the story of Nikotiana, the predecessor of Bulgartabak, and how tobacco ruined the lives of all people connected to it - from the workers to the owner. A few years ago, there was a big scandal with this company going bankrupt and leaving thousands of people without sustenance.

All those things were going on in my head when I found this place so I made an effort to capture the state it is reduced to. Then I emphasized on texture in post-processing.

Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
State: abandoned
Age:  1930s

This is the first image from the series I took with compiling a portfolio in mind. It is maybe the most famous abandoned place in Bulgaria and certainly the most beautiful house in Sofia. Ever since I saw the works of Zdravko Yonchev, I wanted to visit the place but didn't find the time to do so. So, once I had the task to document abandoned buildings, this one was on top of my list.

The story behind the place is long and tangled. It was built in the 1920s as the house of a wealthy Bulgarian banker. Even for the time and his social status, this place was something extraordinary and spacious. It got its name from the decorative strawberries in the front yard. It was so spacious, that it had special gates for carriages and once the house used to be the favourite hanging place of the Bulgarian elite.

Unfortunately, in 1944, the luck of the owners turned and the house was nationalized by the Communist government. 'Nationalized' means that the house was taken over by the state with no compensation whatsoever for the owners (I have no idea what happened to them, but if they were alive and in Bulgaria at that time, they would have been lucky to give only the house and not end up being shot or in the Bulgarian version of Gulag).

Within the years 1944-1989 the house used to be the Romanian embassy in Bulgaria or some type of commercial representative of the USSR or (as some people say) - other enterprises of the USSR with purpose unknown.

In the 1990s the house was a movie set for the Bulgarian production 'The tail of the Devil' (have watched it, it's weird). With the change of government, the house was given back to the descendants of the original banker family who built it. Since 2004, it's owned by a very wealthy entrepreneur who doesn't do anything about it.

Today, the house is locked up and left to rot - as you can see from the image. All access to the insides - spectacular indeed - is denied.  The neighbours are famous for calling the police on anyone who tries to get into it. The pity here is that the place would be a wonderful museum of what Sofia was like before WWII and the bombings, before the Totalitarian regime.

The house with the strawberries is an architectural masterpiece so when I went there, I wanted to make this clear. That's how the first image was born. The second one came out when I tried to incorporate in my shot the idea of that place being closed-off. So I squeezed my lens though a hole in the fence and the second image appeared. I like the contrast between the angular shape of the hole and the round shapes in the house's design.

Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
State: inhabited?
Age:  the beginning of the XX century

This house may look abandoned but it's more likely to be inhabited. Now it looks elaborate to us, used to the uniformity and ugliness of regular Communist blocks of flats (which comprise around 80% of the residential space in Sofia) but this was actually a poor town house. Compared to the house with the strawberries above. this one looks plain and poor. It is now located almost in the ideal center of Sofia but in the beginning of the XX century it used to be in the very outskirts of town in one of the poorest areas - the so-called Iuch-bunar neighbourhood which was full of Bulgarian refugees from Greece, Romania and Turkey. The same place hosted the Jewish diaspora too (the sinagogue is just a few steps away from this house).

What drew me to this house was the inscription above the balcony - reading 1911 - and the elaborate ornamentation left to rot. So I made an effort to emphasize the decay of the place.

Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
State: inhabited
Age:  most likely from the 1930s or the early 1940s

Another house on the same street but this time from a different period - it is much bigger, has more floors and looks wealthier. There is another thing - this house is inhabited for sure. I photographed this house because of the 'tower' for which it is famous. It is located on a busy boulevard and will be renovated soon since most other buildings are already touched up.

The first image - with the 'no parking' sign on it was meant to emphasize the contrast between old and new. The converging verticals are there because there was very little space for maneuvers (unless I wanted to get hit by a car or a tram) and because I wanted to put the sign (which was directly in front of the house) and the tower in one image.

Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
State: abandoned
Age:  most likely from the 1920s

Speaking of towers - this place looks like a Medieval castle and along with the house with the strawberries is one of the most famous abandoned houses in Sofia. If is known as 'the house with the tower' and it is truly extraordinary, as it was its history.

It was built by a revolutionary - who took part in at least 3 uprisings and around 5 wars (the Balkans were a violent place in the beginning of the XX century). He was a nationalist and in the 1920s came to the end of Sofia and built this house in then not so prestigious neighbourhood full of Bulgarian refugees from Greece and Turkey. He did the project himself and built the house with his own hands. He also helped his neighbours for their houses.

It is said that the tower of the house is modeled on the White Tower in Thessaloníki, where the owner came from. It used to have two entrances (you can see one of them above) and probably the ground floor used to house a shop since there is a third door at the corner (the image with the road sign).

This house is much smaller than the house with the strawberries and is left to decay - a local told me that the grandchildren of the man who built it quarrel for inheritance so they left it to rot so that it would fall down on its own and free the space for a block of flats. Today the house is one of the few that remind of the old days and it is surrounded by huge blocks.

Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
State: inhabited
Age:  most likely from the 1940s

This house is one of the many in the neighbourhood in poor condition that is inhabited. I have no idea what its history is but a local told me that the municipality prohibits any reconstruction works on buildings below 50  or 70 square meters. When I asked why, the answer was 'to make room for blocks of flats, they don't care about culture or history'.

Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
State: inhabited
Age:  most likely from the 1930s

This place has a history. It is in the same neighbourhood as the house with the tower and I was drawn by its windows. While I was taking pictures, a local approached me and asked for information. So I explained I am a photographer and I am doing a project on abandoned buildings. He was surprised and said that this one was not abandoned. When I asked why it is in this state, he added that the the municipality prohibits any reconstruction works on buildings below 50  or 70 square meters. When I asked why, the answer was 'to make room for blocks of flats, they don't care about culture or history'.

This place is a historical monument since in the 1940s a famous female guerrilla leader used to hide there. The local told me that there was even a sign on the side of the building but it's now torn out. 

Portfolio development - striking a balance between inspiration and reality

When I had to come up with ideas for Falmouth, and having in mind the topic of abandoned buildings, the first thing that came to my mind was Zdravko Yonchev's work (actually I had to scroll back to the event and find out who he was because at the time we met, I didn't have the habit of collecting contact information). The first image that came to my mind was the one with the glass orb. I love that image. Really, really love it! 

Since I'm new to this genre - really, abandoned things is not something I do on a daily basis - there I was, scratching my head, wondering how to go about the task at hand. You may wonder why I was so reluctant to just go and do it. Well, in Bulgaria, entering abandoned buildings (which are private property most of the time) is illegal and if you are a 5-feet-tall girl like me, you'd think twice before getting in trouble with A) the owners (who are part of the nouveau-riche class that usually lingers at the borderline where law and crime meet) or B) the angry neighbours (who, out of solidarity, may be very hostile to any trespasser since they think it's their turn next) or worse still C) the local police (who are nowhere near the policemen in Britain and will first beat the hell out of me before they ask any questions). So, since my photo equipment is generally my most valuable possession, I'm not really keen on uncalculated risks. 

That was my problem number 1 - as much as I wanted to do what Zdravko had done, I was a girl and alone so I had to proceed with caution. I loved his style - and still do - to me the HDR-like quality of his images adds to the overall mood of decay by bringing the details out. That is his signature style, by the way - anything he shots, he pulls the clarity slider to the maximum (which doesn't always work). To me more clarity is OK, as long as it brings the details out without making this tweak visible from a satellite in outer space. So, whatever I edit, I will surely add some clarity but try to keep it more natural than the full-detailed shots Zdravko does. 

Another thing was that I'm used to capturing the broader image - l because that's what you usually do in landscape and travel - show the spirit of the place. However, with abandoned buildings, it's often the details that do the trick and since I'm not really sure what I'm doing, I have no idea if I've done it right.

Having had all that in mind, I headed for my first 'prey' - the house with the strawberries.  It is roughly the most famous abandoned house in Sofia and maybe the most beautiful one too. I even invited a friend who has a soft spot for abandoned buildings to join me. BUT it turned out that access to the insides of the house (which has an amazing story to tell but about that - at some other time). 

The house with strawberries welcomed me with closed doors. Still, I'm used to taking pictures though the fence of something so I got this image:

This is how the house with the strawberries looks now - all entrances are barred and the neighbours are famous for calling the police 24/7 for anyone who dared venturing inside. 

This image was OK - I've never been to the place so it seemed good to me - BUT somehow it didn't tell the whole story of the place - once the home of a wealthy banker, then an embassy, then the headquarters of KGB (or it's Bulgarian version). So, it dawned on me, that I might incorporate some of the fence of the house. That's how these images were born: 

The fence and house - I really wanted to capture the feeling of the place being closed off. 

This image is by far my favourite because of the contrast of forms - the round ones of the house and the straight ones of the fence. The sticker (which I'll be deleting for the final shot, most probably) is from a security company. 

These images are sort of unedited - I'll be doing a bit more sophisticated edit for the portfolio. But one house alone cannot serve for a whole portfolio. So I needed more information and since this house is virtually the only one I know, I had to do some research. 

That's how I came up with this site - Fading Sofia (available only in Bulgarian) - http://www.fadingsofia.rcss.eu. 

These people have collected all abandoned houses in the city center with maps and information about the place. The thing I noticed that they lack images so I contacted them for collaboration - they give me the info, I give them the images (watermarked since they'll be used on the net) and both quote each other. 

So far, I don't have a response but even if they don'y agree I'll quote them as the source for information.

Work in progress portfolio - reflections on scope and subject

When it comes to abandoned buildings, I am far from an expert - each image of an abandoned place I've ever taken has been somewhat of an accident. I have never looked for such places for two reasons - the first being t's illegal to trespass in property in Bulgaria (and that goes for the abandoned, window-less and door-less buildings too) and you can get into trouble with the police. The second reason is that there is some air of melancholy around most of the abandoned buildings - as if you can feel that someone has lived, loved and hated in this place and you are an intruder. This feeling makes me reluctant to enter such buildings (apart from the obvious danger for your your life such as falling objects, shaky staircases and collapsing ceilings). 

In a previous post about finding style and inspiration I said that the excessive HDR effect is not that good - being too obvious. During the post-processing it turned out that actually a bit more of clarity brings out more in the image. Not all images look good like this but still most of them do. Somehow, adding details to the image makes all defects of the facade stand out and all cracks and holes more prominent, which for the sake of abandoned buildings looks good.   

For the sake of the presentation and the way slides looked like I had to re-frame most of the images. Since the last time I submitted my work in progress portfolio, I was scolded for having coloured (gray) bands around the images, this time I made an effort not to have any bands in the PDF. The whole operation required cutting out of some sections of the image (I tried to cut out only pieces that are least interesting/important to the composition).

All images in the portfolio represent either abandoned or ill-kept buildings in Crete, Greece and two locations in Bulgaria - Sofia and Zlatograd. The diversity of locations is due to the following fact - when i started compiling my work in progress portfolio my initial idea was for it to be a travel one - so the destination was Crete (a truly amazing place). Then, after some discussion with peers and tutors, I had to discard that idea entirely and choose on a new topic which would serve for a more coherent portfolio. The images I took in Crete will be used for my project, Culture Crossroads but very few images from Crete made it to the final cut for my portfolio.

It all started with the image below. The tutors and peers claimed that it is a really powerful image so I could try and compile a portfolio of abandoned images. I rose up to the challenge and here they are - two houses in Crete, 2 houses in Zlatograd and 6 houses in Sofia. The ones in Crete are abandoned (of that I am sure), the two in Zlatograd are abandoned as well but some of the houses in Sofia are not - or so the locals told me.

If I had the proper time, I would try to explore more of these abandoned houses and re-shoot the images from the house with the tower since I hate the dull blue sky. Another idea I had was to shoot the places in all four seasons - to show how they change and decay as time passes. Also I would definitely try to collaborate with the people from the Fadind Sofia project - I wrote an email, probably have to write again.