11 years in the domain

Поздравът на Еос.

Един прекрасен изгрев (изгреви снимам рядко, защото много мразя да ставам рано) осветява Егейско море. Заснех този кадър преди 11 години, кой би помислил, че с него ще започне един проект...

Историята на кадъра може да бъде прочетена тук:

http://patepis.com/?p=68126

Пак там може да се прочете и началото на историята :)

It's been exactly 11 years since I took this picture. When I had no idea what to do with my first camera but had amazing luv with weather. It was how the Culture Crossroads project

started - with this image :) 

Greetings from Eos.

A beautiful sunrise (I rarely take pictures of sunrises, because I really hate getting up early) lights Aegean Sea.

The story behind the shot is available on my blog.

http://bistrastoimenovaphotography.blogspot.bg/2016/09/crete-chasing-minoans-part-two-iraklio.html

Part one here:

http://bistrastoimenovaphotography.blogspot.bg/2016/09/chasing-minoans-part-one-pireaus.html

Sunset in Ouranupoli

A lazy Saturday and a throwback to same time 2 years ago when I had the chance to capture this amazing sunset in Ouranupoli.

This image has been living in the archive for way too long, so high time to bring it out :)

#bistrastoimenova #photography #greeklandscape #greecephotography #greece🇬🇷 #greecetravelgr1_ #greece_is_awesome #travelgreece #travelphotography #harbor #boats #visitgreece #sunset #sea🌊 #sea #seascape #seaside #Mediterranean #summermemories #summer #europe #culturecrossroads #ouranupoli 

Collaborations - how to promote a budding project part 2

Having 'done my homework' with social media, I started looking for other ways to promote my works and the project as a whole. The first idea that came to my mind was to try and collaborate with someone. My first and most logical choice was to write an email to the Fading Sofia project and ask they if they need better images for their website, the idea being that I use their information and make sure to include a link to their page whereas they use my pictures and include a link to my page. 

Here is how their home page looks like - if you click on a point, you see the location and an image of the place so I'd love to have my images there. 

In a previous post I wrote that the site was down and probably that mail was lost somewhere so I might need to write up again as the site functions anew. It is very well indexed on Google and the project as a whole aims to tell stories so I'd love to work with them. 

Another collaboration opportunity I noticed was the recent launch of Balkanium magazine. I came across it in a sponsored post on Facebook and I checked it out. 

To give you an insight of what the project is about, I will quote their info page:

'Balkanium is a photography magazine that was started as a documentary photography master degree project in Belgrade, Serbia. Main intention is to show interesting moments of life and people of the Balkans, that will spread a bit more positive view of this region and life in general. Also, people and countries of the Balkans are not enough connected, beside classic media information’s that are mainly focused on political themes and events. We thought that we should build a platform where we can learn about each other more through photo stories about different people and themes around us. Professional photographers will be here to create that bond and platform.

Balkanium tends to make a team of photographers, one from each Balkan country. If You are interested You can read more here. Balkanium stories exist to try to break some prejudices, make someone’s day, and share quality information’s in the sea of others.

Anđela Petrovski

Photographer and Founder'

I wrote a quick email and explained that we can help each other since our projects have a lot in common and explained that I seek to popularize my project on their magazine as well and they were delighted to have me. Now, there is an open call for photographers to submit articles and I am about to send out my first story for publication within the next few weeks. 

Another collaboration I found useful was with the colleagues from Patepis.com - the biggest travel website and blog in Bulgaria. This is a screengrab of my most recent post there - it is a really long post so that's just the admin note on my work. 

I personally know the admins and they have been publishing my works for the past two years. I use Patepis.com to promote my work as a photographer (because the site is really well indexed on Google) but also to indulge my passion for writing - so it's a win-win for both sides.

What is more, the stories in Patepis.com are in Bulgarian only which balances with the English-only project and gives my Bulgarian followers something to read. 

Another recent collaboration is with the Bulgaria Official channel -  they also plan a campaign for popularizing Bulgaria and asked me to join the team since they love my stories and images. I asked if I can use their platform to popularize my project and they were OK with it. Actions are to be taken there since the project there is in the planning stage. 

I also became a member of the Bulgarian Association of Professional photographers and they, too said they will give me the opportunity to showcase my work, once I have a larger portfolio of things to show and when the project gets more audience. 

What needs to be done is to launch the website and start advertising the project to the places I visit. I've planned to print out some business cards to hand out to people to let them know what this thing is. 

Social media - how to promote a budding project part 1

When you have a budding project on your hands, you cannot seek financial gain at the very beginning. At least not in Bulgaria where people are used to trying to avoid paying for services they deem 'too easy to do' such as photography. I've been told multiple times that my work is easy because 'you simply press a button all day' and I've been laughed at because I said I am tired. 

Generally, the Bulgarian audience is a tough call. So, to present my work as something of value, I devised an approach that would make me stand out from the crowd of good photographers with stunning images (because, even as small a market as Bulgaria is, there are a lot of colleagues with good works). 

So the first step was to create a Facebook page and to invite everyone I know to like it. However, this approach wasn't as effective as I hoped since I currently have less than 200 likes. On the other hand, the change of Facebook algorithm which cut the access of non-sponsored content to the feeds of users was quite the setback. I've also noticed that the first 200 likes (or followers) are usually the hardest ones to get since people somehow perceive pages with more likes as the ones worth visiting. 

From my other Facebook page, the one I use to promote all my work, I've noticed that a good image on its own will do no good to the page and will not attract more people UNLESS it is accompanied by the story behind the shot and something personal - for example, travel and safety information, or some history, or my struggles for the shot on location. I've received lots of positive feedback on the texts I write in my personal blog and Facebook page so I decided to put this approach to work for Culture Crossroads. 

Here is a screengrab of one of my latest posts on it - a video of the celebrations of 140 years since the Liberation of Bulgaria. This is relatively short post and aims at attracting more people to the page - since Facebook algorithm puts forward pages that have recently uploaded videos. Plus, behind-the-scenes videos are a good way to attract more people to see the places for themselves and were part of Culture Crossroads from the very beginning. I am still a novice at image processing so the process is a bit slow but it starts to pay off as people react and share my content more often. 

All videos are also uploaded to my YouYube channel so I make sure to have a decent description with a lot of links in it. So far the video above had the best reach. 

A usual post I do for the page looks like this (the pic is a bit blurred because I had to zoom out to get the whole text in one screen grab):

On Culture Crossroads Facebook page I aim to give the history and significance of the place - the project is in English only since it's aimed at international audience. On this page, I also try to give some useful travel information - in case someone wants to visit the place and links to useful websites. 

The Bulgarian version, some photo tips and the story behind the shot are set aside for my personal photo page, where I talk about the shot as such and what cost me to take it as well as a really brief explanation of what is on the pic, redirecting to the Culture Crossroads page (to attract more people). 

The broader cultural context I try to present on the Culture Crossroads blog - where you can find a few (not so many since each post takes a lot of time to compile) posts with information. Here is a screengrab from my most recent post, concerning Martenitsa - an ancient Balkan tradition in which I discuss the legends behind the ritual. 

I also set up an Instagram account to reach out to a wider audience and, even though I am not an Instagram guru, I think it is doing well for the few posts it has. My secret of getting more followers there is to tag channels that would share my content and tag me in it (so far, I've managed to reach out with each post). I also keep tagging the project if I post an image related to it on my personal profile, too. 

I've done this so far but I plan to launch the website of the project (which is taking forever to write up since I do it myself and I am not a computer programmer) and keep posting more regularly. 

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.

Recreating old shots and why weather matters in travel photography

In travel photography, what matters is the moment - but not just any moment as it is in sports. You need that WOW moment to make people want to visit the place. You need an amazing image that would make the others crave to see the place, to be there or.. to be you.

As it is most of my stories, it all starts with an image - in my case - this one: 

Rethimno port in 2009 - I really love the clouds and colours. This image, despite the technical deficiencies - being taken with a compact camera in JPEG - remains one of my favourites. 

At that time, I had no idea what I was doing. Really. I was 17 and I've just gotten my first digital camera. To me Crete, because the image above is from there, was a land of wonders full of strange and amazing things. So there I was, wandering around and frantically taking pictures of anything I laid my eyes on. The port, the fortress and the streets - anything that I found extraordinary. I didn't bother about composition or fuss with settings - the only thing I knew how to use at the time was the scene selection option (later on, I discovered the manual mode of the camera but back in 2009, that was terra incognita).

Here are some of the other images I took in 2009: 

The entrance of the Venetian fort at Rethimno - image from that time in 2009

The port of Rethimno with the famous lighthouse. Picture was taken in 2009.

The insides of the Venetian fortress - again 2009

These images were taken, loved and cherished as an amazing memory from a great adventure. But that was when the story ended. Soon after the return to Bulgaria, these images were totally forgotten. Two years later, when I had to apply for university, photography was nowhere near my choice of profession. It didn't even cross my mind that I could be a photographer. Instead, I chose to be a linguist and to study English - to have a 'decent profession'. Then, all of a sudden, in 2011, I had an idea of starting to share my work online. I found a website and started uploading my work. 

I keep saying this but if the users of the website hadn't told me that I was no good, that I lacked the skills and the equipment to be decent photographer, I wouldn't have become one. It was by sheer stubbornness that I started saving money to buy a camera, and taught myself composition and post-processing. It was all by trial and error. 

Somewhere during that process though, I decided that maybe what matters is skills and equipment. The more I progressed, the better images I took so I thought it was all skills. After the initial bullying I discarded anything taken before 2012 and concentrated on new content.

But as I progressed and learned new post-processing skills, I started re-editing old images, digging in the archives to see if I can 'save' an old image with a new and better edit. That's how one cloudy October day last year, I came across the images from 2009. I was doing a travelogue for a Bulgarian website and wanted to show some images (travelogues always go well with images and since I am a photographer, I am famous in this site for submitting articles with a lot of images). This time, however, instead of just exporting the file out of Lightroom, I created a PSD file and went to Photoshop. The result was stunning - to me at least. Colleagues though told me it was too colourful, too HDR-like and so on.

I'm posting the image again, in case you don't remember what it was.

It was NOT and HDR so I can't say I was pleased with the feedback but I decided that the next time I go to Crete, I will revisit Rethimno and try to retake the image. Now that I'm good and skillful photographer, have all the equipment and so on it's just bound to be a stunning one. 

The irony is, that since 2009 I have been to Crete two more times BUT I didn't go to Rethimno then. There were so many other places I wanted to visit that I couldn't. This time I was dead-set on going again.

As I decided to work on the Culture Crossroads project I was sure that I want to add Crete in it. You can visit the project's page and blog for more information. 

Crete welcomed me with cold weather for the end of September - I didn't expect to be with a jacket on the beach - but otherwise amazing weather for images - dramatic clouds all over the sky, dynamic weather shifting in an hour from bright sun to torrential rain. I was delighted to finally nail some of the images I've been imagining ever since 2014 (the previous time I managed to visit Crete). 

Rethimno, of course was at the top of my list but given the distances on the island - and the so many locations I wanted to visit - it was left for the very last day - because at that time we would have a whole day before boarding the night ferry to Athens. So I waited (I'll skip though several other locations since they deserve a post of their own) for that day to come. 

Weather decided to play a trick on me though and show me that skills and equipment are worth nothing if you are unlucky enough to get dull weather conditions. Rethimno welcomed me with 30 degrees Celsius, heat, sun just shining in my lens and not a single cloud in the sky. The very moment I saw the light was harsh and in the wrong direction and the sky was dull I was absolutely disappointed.

The before and after of one of the images from that day. As you can see, the original is not much to talk about.

After all, I counted so much on this location - Rethimno is famous for its Venetian style small houses that reflect in the crystal-clear waters of the port. But what reflections when the sun is shining directly in my lens (despite the hood) and all I see is a big black nothing where the houses should be. This time, I thought, even RAW files and Photoshop cannot save the day. Still, since "I ain't not quitter" as the song line goes, I started wandering around the port to find the exact same location of the image from 2009. 

I have good photographic memory so I found it - guess what - that boat from the picture was still there! Parked at the same place. I was delighted to find it but disappointed that the sky isn't more interesting. Still, I thought, that would serve for a good blog post illustration of how skills alone cannot help much.

The recreated shot - as you can see, it is nowhere near the splendour of the original of 2009.

I didn't stop there and decided that since I am here for the first time in 8 years, I should try to do my best and create something usable. After all, professional photographers say that there's no such thing as bad lighting.

This image, taken just two steps to the side (this is the very same boat from 2009) proved to be much better than the recreated shot. Plus, it proved one of my theories that skills do matter and make a difference. Back in 2009, I just snapped a shot of the boat and moved on. Last month, I spent half an hour photographing it from all possible angles.

The image above proves that equipment does matter too - it was originally taken in RAW so I had much more freedom and opportunities to 'save it' so I did my best (I guess a Photoshop master would do much better but currently, this is as far as I can go). Apart from post-processing skills though, this image is not much to talk about. I like how it looks now but if I was using the same camera from 2009, an image like that (look at the print screen above) would just be lost to post-processing - after all, you cannot get that many details from a JPEG.

Here is another image - from the Venetian fort at Rethimno - that shows how many nasty tricks bad weather can play on you.

I love the architectural details in this image, love the lines, the windows, door and stairs BUT something is missing in this image. To me, that is the dramatic sky. I would have turned this into black and white but for the purpose of this blog decided to leave it in its original coloured version so that you see what I mean.
Don't get me wrong, it IS a good shot BUT it could have been way better. Same goes for all other images.

A bit discouraged by the blazing sun, I decided to turn my back to on it and go for something that is illuminated. And then saw the lighthouse - the famous lighthouse of Rethimno, one of the most beautiful ones in whole Greece.

I love reflections. I'm addicted to them and these almost mirror-like reflections in the still water of the harbour made me gasp. I really like this shot but again, still think there is room for improvement.

I left Rethimno with quite a few images worth editing but very few WOW images in my opinion. This had nothing to do with equipment or skill - these will have a role in post-processing - as you can see, I did my best to present something good.

Problem is that sometimes equipment and skills are not enough to create the amazing picture-postcard shot you aim at. That happens not because you're not good enough but simply because you didn't go to the place at the right time. This is one of the reasons why I will have to go to Rethimno again to get the dramatic shots I want (it would be a pleasure to be there again :) ).

The story also has a moral - no matter how bad the conditions look like, you should NEVER EVER give up on taking pictures, If I had done so when I saw that the retaken photo sucks and returned to the table by the water, I wouldn't have created anything worth seeing (or editing, for that matter).

Images are always there and even if sometimes they don't look the way we want them to, they too tell a story :)