Throughout the MA at Falmouth, I have been working on different aspects of one project I started with – Culture Crossroads with the aim to promote the region I come from – the Balkan peninsula – and its cultural, natural and historical heritage.
In order to bring some order into this vast scope, I devised six categories dealing with the different aspects of the subjects I wanted to capture:
- Remember the Past – historical sites
- Experience the Present – food, street photography
- Be Part of Culture – holidays, customs and historical reenactments
- See Nature – landscapes
- Admire Architecture -
- Feel Religion - places of worship
Throughout the previous modules, I tried to focus on a particular aspect of my project, realizing that I cannot submit a coherent portfolio of only 20 images that would be able to cover all six categories.
Hence, for my FMP, I decided to go local since Culture Crossroads proved to be a tremendous amount of work and time, which will not end after the end of the MA.
Given the time of the year that comes around – winter – that meant I had to go really local and have 24/7 access to it.
This is how I came with the project ‘Sofia - Between the Lions and the Eagles - echoes of a lost city’.
ASSIGNMENTS:
This module, the assignments were less than the previous time BUT this didn't mean it was any easier than the previous time. In fact, the very act of taking the right pictures and making up my mind as to what I wanted to do and how I wanted it done proved to be really, really hard. I have never done such a project before and while I was thinking of the Final Project Proposal, I had to come up with an idea that was doable. However, things were not as easy as I thought.
- Final Project Proposal
- Critical Review of Practice
- Final Major Project
- the third one is this blog
RESEARCH:
My research started with delving into the local archives. It turned out that Bulgaria has a whole lot of archives (and here I do not have in mind the National archives). What I needed were image database archives with images that are at least 70 years old since I needed to show how my hometown looked withe before WWII and the totalitarian regime. Hence, I started with one of the biggest image banks in Bulgaria (available on-line, that is) - Lost Bulgaria. Then, it dawned on me that what I actually need is not the pictures that show events or people and customs but those that show buildings since my project is more an architectural one.
That is how I came upon the Photo Archive Todor Slavchev. He was a famous photojournalist with amazing database. He was a famous journalist that manages to see and photograph the end of the XIX century and the most momentous events of the XX century. However, as a photojournalist, he put a stress on the events and people rather than buildings.
Then I went to look for pictures of buildings and that is how I came across another page - Royal Bulgaria in colour - a project that uses old images and colorises them to give them a new look and new life. They do amazing things BUT again, very few of the images were useful to me.
That is how I turned back to a blog and project I have been admiring for years - the Old Sofia Project. In their collection, they had amazing images and most importantly - more images of buildings and streets that I can actually rephotograph. More on my struggles to find the right archives, in the following posts:
As for researching re-photography - that was another challenge in itself - since no one in Bulgaria actually does something like that. The archive projects are many BUT the re-photographers in the Balkans are few. More information on the quest for finding inspiration, in the following posts:
FMP - project development - narrowing down scope (when your initial project is too broad)
FMP - ‘Sofia - Between the Lions and the Eagles - echoes of a lost city’ - brief
FMP - research - archive sources - part 1
FMP - research - archive sources - part 2
FMP - research - archive sources - part 3
FMP - thoughts on aestheticism and differences between the East and West
WORK IN PROGRESS, PROJECT DEVELOPMENT AND THOUGHTS:
On the superficial level, re-photography didn't seem like the most difficult thing on earth. You have an old photo, a clear shooting angle and you simply need to play copycat to what the original photographer did decades ago. However, some obstacles occurred - such as not being able to use the same angle due to construction works or simply not being able to use the same framing.
More on my struggles and the image selection process - in the following posts:
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