I have always had a passion for old photographs and stories from the past. Given the long history of Sofia, there were plenty of stories to tell, by both my older relatives and the national archives. I keep mentioning it, but when someone comes to Sofia and we meet, I love playing the tour guide - mainly telling stories that tour guides simply miss out or even don't know. Some stories are popular legends, some are absolutely true and witnessed by members of my family. Point is, that each and every place in a city with more than 3000 years of history has a story to tell. Most of the time filled blood and betrayal.
The National archives are full of images from the period of the Third Bulgarian kingdom (1878-1944) but as far as I know no one tried to do a re-photography project. Ever since I started this MA, I noticed that there is a stark difference in aestheticism from West to East. What photographers in the UK deem as a 'masterpiece' or a 'very good work' or even 'really beautiful' is often nowhere near what I would call interesting or good. In the West, as I have noticed, there is a passion for being 'true' to the original and to the unedited reality. That is amazing in documentary photography, really, but when it comes to what I really work with - travel photography - things do not work out that well. Mainly because the mentality of the people that perceive the image is different.
In Bulgaria, and in most of the Eastern Europe as a whole, there is this concept of the image being 'beautiful'. It is highly subjective, of course, but there is this tendency in eastern Europe and Russia (need to mention it since there are a lot of amazing photographers there that generally set the overall tone) to shoot beautiful things in a beautiful way. There is no interest in showing the 'ugly' or unedited - life is ugly and unedited enough. People have perceived photography as something of an art for many years - the reason being that the Totalitarian regimes across Eastern Europe put a stress on being like the Vitruvian man of Leonardo - to be able to do everything, have interests and skills in various fields etc. In this environment of overpressure towards young people, the 'arts' such as music, photography and painting, were put on a pedestal. Each and every child had to have a talent and inevitably started taking tutoring in one of those - my mother went to music lessons, my father to photography classes after school. You simply needed to have a talent and photography had been regarded much more as an 'art' than just a mere means to capture what is going on around you.
Hence, non-beautiful, documentary images (without any artistic value) are very hard to find since the overall way people think stops them from reaching popularity. Here is an example from today of a 'beautiful' still life from the Russian site www.35photo.ru - a very prestigious platform to showcase you work with a rigorous acceptance process. There are amazing photographers from all over the world there so the things one can see are stunning, especially the editor's selection. But still, there is a tone and a 'mood' in the site and images that fit in better than others.
This image was in the 'new' category which means that it had been uploaded just a few minutes ago. From what I see on it, however, I can say that it will go high up in the ranks of the images for the day. Here is why:
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| Source: https://35photo.pro/photo_3124329/#new#mainPhoto1467782 |
It is a beautiful still life arranged sort of in the style of the Dutch masters. Soft light, bright colours, something to please the eye. The idea to please the eye, no matter what you photograph, is so inherent in the Eastern European mind that documentary photography is hard to find. Mainly because it is 'dull', 'uninteresting' and 'ugly' - to be an artist, the Eastern European stereotype goes, you need to create something pleasing to the eye. If not, you risk being unpopular and your work going into oblivion.
So, this is one of the reasons I guess i could not find a single colleague who does re-photography in Bulgaria. On the contrary - there are a myriad of people who shoot landscapes and food, a ton that do portraits and 'art' photography BUT not a single one to look back in time? Photograph abandoned buildings – yes, but no one has tried to capture one and the same place from the same angle as in some photograph taken some 100 years ago. Hence, I started looking globally and I found some stunning projects and artists. Whom I found, in a follow-up post.
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