FMP - final - angle changes and motivation

As I mentioned in the introduction, some of the angles are different from those in the original images. The reasons for that vary.  At some places, it was simply impossible to re-create the old image since there was real danger for me doing so. Even though, I tried and here is the result:

The original image was taken in 1910 when the road must have been relatively peaceful. However, now this is one of the busiest roads in the country. I took quite the risk standing in the middle of it - even at red lights - to take the re-photographed shot. When the lights changed to green, however, things were dangerous. Bulgarian drivers are not the most tolerant ones, I'd say. hence, this is closest I could get to the original (and I really loved the old image because of the tram). Unfortunately, the old angle used is to be in the middle of the street (which would be directly in the cars' way) so i could not do that. 

At other cases – like the monument of Vasil Levski shown in another section – I decided to shift the angle a bit to show something that is important to the culture of Bulgaria.

I shifted the angle to show Vasil Levski’s portrait in the background since this way the composition speaks volumes to the Bulgarian observer (who was my target audience for the exhibition). In this case I decided to shift the angle for the sake of recognition and for the sake of impact.

In other case (when I needed to photograph Saint Alexander Nevski cathedral), I decided not to cut the building in half to show its magnificence. The original image was taken in 1910 when the cathedral was under construction - it is one of the very few images of the place at that stage and I was fascinated by it so I totally wanted to include it in the project since it it unique. When I got on location, however, the scale of the original image did not fit what I saw. If I wanted to do an exact copy of the old image, I needed to cut out half of the church and I wanted to show the splendour of the place. Hence I changed the scale and showed the whole church in the final image to show how bit the church has got since then. 

Another case was when I needed to photograph the monument of Sofia – there, to capture the whole of it (it is a very tall one), I needed to change the scale (since the old monument of Lenin that used to be there was much smaller). Unfortunately, the scale change was necessary to show the new monument.

The case with the National Theater was different - it has not changed much though its surroundings have. The theater has not changed much, but its surroundings have - if I had to recreate the original shot, I needed to be in the middle of a cafe full of tourists and which blocks like 70% of the view. Hence I changed the angle to be able to shoot the actual image and not the cafe in front of it.

FMP - final - the exhibition - summary

‘Sofia – grows but never ages’ is about change and development of the urban environment. In it, I tried to explore how famous historical landmarks within the Sofia downtown have changed throughout the years. It mainly focuses on the social aspect of how the cultural-historical environment changes the inherited buildings and how the urban environment changes. This is evident in some of the images where the landmark (now in downtown) was in the outskirts of the city. Most landmarks (included in the final exhibition, that is) have changed very little since they have been opened to the public (in the beginning of the 20th century or the end of the 19th).

Sofia has a long history and throughout the past century, it has undergone many social, political and geographical changes – ranging from totalitarian rule to WWII bombings. Whole districts appeared while other were demolished but some buildings somehow managed to stand the test of time. They exist today, squeezed in between modern shops and restaurants and they tell a different story – of a budding country that somehow managed to get out of the pit of poverty and slavery to be plunged into another pit of total control only sixty years later, within the lifespan of a generation.

That town is long-gone but I tried to trace and connect the bits and pieces of that lost world in my project to see if old Sofia still exists. 

In 2019 it is the 140^th anniversary since Sofia was selected as the capital of Bulgaria and the exhibition ‘Sofia – grows but never ages’ provides a glimpse of what Sofia used to look like in those early days and a comparison to the modern metropolis. When I started the project I didn’t notice that the two coincide but now that I know it, I will try to exploit this to the fullest and try to display the exhibition as much as possible.

Sofia is a contradiction in terms and one cannot be indifferent. It is lloathed by some, loved by others. The capital of Bulgaria is one of the oldest cities in Europe with history spanning across three millennia – even before the time of Constantine the Great, there were settlements at this place. Many nations have passed through this area and each left its mark on the place. Architecture and culture were layered and now what the tourist can see is a palimpsest of styles and eras. 140 years ago, things were different. “Sofia – grows but never ages” aims to show this difference to the public.

Today, it is possible to see the temples of 4 religions within one square kilometer and to take a look into 4000 year old history. Often in our fast-paced daily routine, we do not notice those things around us.

The exhibition “Sofia – grows but never ages" aims to show how the emblematic places in Sofia downtown have changed and to be a bridge between the past and the future. For this reason, I selected real archive photos – provided by the Стара София blog. The contemporary photos are part of the Culture Crossroads project of Bistra Stoimenova Photography.

Each pane (see the FMP file) consists of an old image and a new one taken from roughly the same angle where that was possible. All images used date to the pre-communist and interbellum period (the majority being from the 1920s and 30s). Each pane comes with a QR code which I added to ensure that all the necessary information will be available regardless if I am there or not. It proved very useful for adding text about the place that cannot be fitted into the pane. It is linked to the exhibition website where the history of the place each old image has been added to the old images so that people know what they are seeing.

FMP - final - promotion of the exhibition

Promoting the exhibition was one of the crucial things I needed to do before I actually opened and my main medium for that were the social networks. I decided to spend 0 money on advertising whatsoever since if anyone wanted to come, they will surely find a way. Plus, even if I had the money for leaflets etc, this would not necessarily equal more visitors. 

Hence, I decided to rally friends and friends of friends via Facebook (easy enough a task since I have around 1400 followers on my photo page around that much friends on my personal profile). That, combined with the multiple shares of friends and colleagues led to a fairly good totally organic reach (see the screen grab below). 

The main target for the exhibition was the Bulgarian audience, particularly the residents of Sofia who would mainly be able to come. Hence, the event text is in Bulgarian only (I was counting to Facebook's "auto translate" function for foreign followers). The event is on the following link :) 

https://www.facebook.com/events/336460533917160/

As Facebook did not allow me to do a one month event (for some reason, the maximum duration is only 2 weeks), I will need to do a second event once those two weeks are over (or edit the current one, if possible).

I have prepared teaser images and two teaser videos for the exhibition as well. They are to be uploaded on my YouTube channel, Instagram accounts and multiple pages to attract more audience.  One of them (which launched with the sole purpose of attracting visitors) can be seen below: 

Throughout the month I will keep sharing some interesting things and teaser images in the hope of engaging more people.

For those who go to the exhibition, I prepared a website (it can be accessed from the event OR from the QR codes on each exhibition pane). Unlike the event, the site is in English only, aimed mainly at the foreign visitors who may not know what they are seeing. I am assuming that the Bulgarian audience is in the know what these landmarks are and has a vague idea of how this place has developed.

The website can be found here: 

https://bistrastoimenova.wixsite.com/sofia

FMP - research - the art of re-photography - part 2

As good as Levere and Maciejewski’s projects were in terms of scope and angling ect., they looked too traditional and something was missing for me. Maciejewski and Levere made me understand what re-photography is about and to get a glimpse of how it should be done – same angle and preferably same post-processing used – but I work in colour, not black and white and wanted to incorporate the coloured image into my work as well.

I started looking for a re-photographer that has chosen to break the canon and ditch the black and white for his/her modern images. I thought that the contrast in colours will lead to even starker contrast between the vintage image and the modern one. 

That was when I came across Vincent Zénon Rigaud’s work and was fascinated by it. He is a French photographer dedicated to re-photographing his native town of Reims through the ages. What I loved about his work (when I saw his website I was amazed by the editing idea) is that he not only re-photographs the place, he blends in the two images to create a new, stunning image, encompassing both old and new. (see fig.1 below)

Fig.1 - Vincent Zénon Rigaud – Reims. 2017 (cover of a book by Yann Harlaut)

I loved the approach since it was the first time I see something like that alongside the other re-photography projects, the one Rigaud did stood out. It was unique and not only showed two images side by side, it made a blend of two images, two historical periods and two traditions in one final image which made me stop and think. He definitely had a distinctive style of his own and I would have liked to do something similar. 

Very few people in Bulgaria, if any, are doing re-photography projects, at least none that I am aware of. While looking at the projects of Levere and Maciejewski I saw an idea but nothing that would make me stand out. Their projects are inclined towards documentary photography and I must admit, I am not that much into it to be able to produce something of value in this style.

Rigaud’s project was a different universe for me – artistic, interesting, and even eclectic to some extent. It combined old and new in one photograph (which would be much easier to display) and the final result showed both the stark changes (each of the images is manipulated in such a way so that the final blend shows the most of the changes that occurred in between the captures) and the artist’s view.

I liked his approach in terms of post-processing that I intend to use it in my own project (or adapt it, in case it does not work for the images I select). To me, Rigaud’s work is novel, artistic and documentary. What is more, he primarily works in colour and the style of his other images (non-related to this project) is similar to the style I employ when post-processing my images. I think I have found a way to stand out within the photographic community and the general public since no one has done something like that.

Later on, it dawned on me that even if I do something like Rigaud did, that would be a mere copycat. What was important to my work was that he worked in colour and that his contrasts are even better - working with colour. So I settled for the middle ground - neither monochrome only, as in the projects of Levere and Maciejewski - nor the blend of Rigaud. Most probably will have the two images on one canvas (the old one slightly smaller than the re-photographed - for resolution reasons). 

But that is yet to be arranged. 

FWP - research - the art of re-photography - part 1

As I mentioned in the previous post, I needed to find some practitioners who have done re-photography to see what the genre was like. To me the whole idea was a challenge since there is no one in Bulgaria who has done such a project. I looked globally (and googled 're-photography') to see who are some of the most famous in the field were. After all, if I am to learn, let it be by the best.

One of the first projects that I encountered was Douglas Levere's New York Changing[1] which portrayed the way New York (Manhattan in particular) has changed over the 20th century. The author started in the 1990s and used absolutely the same perspective as the one of the previous images. The images are displayed side by side, showing the differences (or lack of them, in some cases). At first, that seemed like a good approach to me. I was fascinated by the way Levere used the same perspective to show the stark changes. However, as I later discovered, that approach (see fig.1 below) turned out to be one of the most conventional ones and I was aiming for something more ‘artsy’, interesting and attracting attention. To conform with my Eastern European side, I needed something that appealed to me and despite the attention to angle and perspective Levere showed, I disliked the idea to show both images - the vintage and the modern - in monochrome. I have previously written about this but guess I need to repeat it here again - I am a fan of colour photography. Not that monochrome is a bad thing but rarely a picture looks better with the colours taken away. 

As in the image below, the emphasis is on forms, that is good, but I think the image lost from being converted to black and white. Lost the vigour of modernity, the colour of the current world. If I look at the two images, the one that looks better to me is the original image from 1936, because of the variety of forms of the skyscrapers and the interesting  line they form for the viewer. The eye is made to wonder to and from whereas in the second, re-photographer picture, the eye is  blocked by that tall building in the foreground. The thing being black and white automatically makes it less interesting to me compared to the previous one. 

Fig.1 Douglas Levere - From Pier 11, East River, between Old Slip and Wall Street. 1936/1998.

Even though I admired Levere for the meticulous angling and the whole project, something was missing in there for me as I wanted to have photographs that look no less 'beautiful' than their originals. I needed colour and life and most importantly - I needed doable angles. The image above showed to me that it is not enough to have a nice old picture with a stunning landscape if the same place looks like the pic on the right.

So I kept on searching. I thought that there must be someone who did do re-photography and managed to create stunning pieces. So far the ones Levere did were interesting but they didn't make me think 'wow, I want to do something like him'.

I came across Andrzej Maciejewski’s project After Notman while searching for other practitioners. He selected iconic locations in Canada, photographed by William Notman in the 19th century and aimed to re-photograph them reproducing the same light, colours and shades. The project turned out to be a huge success since it was awarded by a local cultural magazine[2].Maciejewski’s approach was also traditional – the images are displayed side by side and the processing is done in such a way that the two images visually resemble each other, as if they had been taken using the same method (see screen grab below). What I liked most and intend to use in my project, however, is the idea to select iconic locations and re-photograph them.

Since the archives are full of images of Sofia that show random places that have changed drastically, it would not make much sense. Maciejewski managed to show not only how the images changed BUT also to make both images look appealing. You see the city changing before you but unlike the images of Levere, here you admire both images. 

Fig.2 (left) William Notman & Son - St. Catherine Street Looking East from Stanley Street, Montreal, QC. 1915 (right)Andrzej Maciejewski - St. Catherine Street Looking East from Stanley Street, Montreal, QC. 2000

The iconic places, however, are a different story. They are recognizable and some have changed drastically. Hence, I compiled a list of the most famous locations around the downtown and intend to employ the idea used by Maciejewski’s and photograph only landmarks, not some random places simply because they have changed a lot. I chose to follow his lead of landmarks since these are the places people use to navigate around the city, the ones they take their children to and the ones that are usually the topic of public debate of someone tries to change them. 

An iconic place, a landmark, is usually something many people can relate to. It has a story that is told and retold and it is most probably photographed more than once so there is an abundance. 

Fig.3 (left) William Notman & Son - Maisonneuve Monument, Place d’Armes, Montreal, QC. 1896 (right)Andrzej Maciejewski - Maisonneuve Monument, Place d’Armes, Montreal, QC 1999

The image above displays exactly what I wanted to show - how something that was once imposing can be dwarfed by the surrounding landscape. Of course, we do not have skyscrapers in Sofia, but we have quite a few places that look like this. Some of the images I have selected resemble the one above of the monument. There is this one thing that is old, once surrounded by buildings that are from the same architectural style and then, 100 later, it is like the odd-one-out.

Loved Maciejewski's approach but still something was missing for me.

---

[1] http://www.newyorkchanging.com/

[2] More about the award can be seen here: http://www.scopionetwork.com/pt-pt/node/159?language=en#1

FMP - ‘Sofia - Between the Lions and the Eagles - echoes of a lost city’ - brief

‘Sofia - Between the Lions and the Eagles – echoes of a lost city’ will explore how famous historical landmarks within the downtown (symbolically marked with two bridges – one with statues of sitting lions, the others with eagles) have changed throughout the years. It would mainly focus on the social aspect of how the cultural-historical environment changes the inherited buildings and how the urban environment changes.

Sofia has a long history and throughout the past century, it has undergone many social, political and geographical changes. Whole districts appeared while other were demolished but some buildings somehow managed to stand the test of time. They exist today, squeezed in between modern shops and restaurants and they tell a different story – of a budding country that somehow managed to get out of the pit of poverty and slavery to be plunged into another pit of total control only sixty years later, within the lifespan of a generation.

That town is long-gone but I will try to trace and connect the bits and pieces of that lost world in my project to see if old Sofia still exists. To do that, I intend to work with local archive websites (and if necessary delve into the National Archives) to get access to imagery that pre-dates WWII since after 1945 the geography and architecture of Sofia was overtaken by Socialist Realism and Stalinist architecture.

I intend to focus on older buildings (created either in the interbellum period or before WWI) and select images that depict them. Then I will try to capture the place from the same angle and see how the environment around the place has changed.

The ultimate idea of the project will be to have it exhibited – old and new images of one and the same place side by side. The exhibition will have to take place in May next year. For convenience’s sake, the project will be confined only to the downtown where most of the historical buildings are located. Hence, I will not focus on building created after the 1950s since

the architectural style differs a lot and will try not to overdose the Totalitarian streak in the project.

At least, that was the idea I initially had when I needed to write my FMP proposal. However, things were not as easy as I thought since some of the modern landmarks did not exist before WWII while others existed but have not changed one bit. That is how I ended up with a various collection of landmarks on my list - buildings, monuments, bridges. Most of them have an interesting story to tell and all are now part of the mental map a citizen of Sofia uses to navigate around the town.

The interbellum condition did not completely match since some of these landmarks had been built even before WWI. The geographical restriction - that they all should be within Old Sofia (which is now the downtown) is matched. 

Some of the contrasts between now and then are stark, some mild. Most of them, however, show how a city changes though time. Sofia has seen a lot of changes since 1878 when the small then town was proclaimed the capital of Bulgaria, Back then, the position was chosen since it was roughly in the middle of the idealized version of Bulgaria, the area that was believed to cover all territories with people with Bulgarian descent.

Back then, Sofia didn't even have paved roads, at some places, it didn't even have houses to speak of  - see the pic below:

Source: http://www.lostbulgaria.com/index.php?cat=15&paged=5

In the XIX century, this was a meadow with a lone Ottoman gravestone (background, to the left of the person) which was wrongly called the 'Roman wall'. It was far away from the city center and at that time no one thought that the city would go that far to the mountain. 

Today, 140 years later, this is one of the most prestigious residential districts of Sofia, Lozenets. 

Source: http://www.lostbulgaria.com/index.php?cat=15&paged=5

This one is another very popular place now - today it is where the Architectural university is and the National Stadium. 140 years ago, it was way out of the city. 

I used these images just to show you the contrast between what Sofia used to be and what it is now. However, as much as I am interested in images that date back to the Liberation period around 1878(which reminds me that may be there is some need of a post explaining the history of Sofia) I am not able to properly use them for my re-photography project since they are dated too far back in time. The geography has changed too much for those 140 odd years so the shooting angles these people back then used are now impossible to mimic (even though I bravely tried with another pic which displays no less striking difference). 

I will be settling with more 'modern' images of Sofia - 'modern' being that the oldest of my pool are shot at the very end of the XIX century. 

FMP - WIP - image selection - part 2 - too much change/too little change, what is optimal for a re-photograph?

As I mentioned in the previous post, the Sofia of 100 years ago is very, very different from the modern megalopolis (and yes, it is pretty big since it takes more than 2 hours to cross in diameter using public transportation). Sofia has around a million and a half inhabitants according to the last census BUT there are just as many people who currently live in the city but are not registered here. 

When selecting the images I needed to be confined to the old city of Sofia from the beginning of the XX century which is roughly what we now call the downtown. The area is locked between two bridges - Lions' bridge to the north-west and Eagles' bridge to the south-east. 100 years ago these were the edges of the city. Today, they just mark where old buildings can be seen. 

However, even this clarification was not enough since there are changes and changes. In the previous post I mentioned that the Totalitarian regime demolished much of the old city center (badly damaged in the WWII bombings) to make way for the new brutalist Stalinist-realism one that can be seen now (the TV crews that come to shoot in Bulgaria usually use that place as a substitute for Moscow since the huge buildings look so alike to the ones there). Hence, there was no point of using any images from the old Targovska street - once the trading heart of the city with amazing Viennese architecture since that street no longer exists and the places are unrecognizable. 

There are many other places like that and while selecting the images, I came across some curious examples, such as this: 

Source: http://www.lostbulgaria.com/?p=2891

This is actually Lions' bridge in 1879 but the landscape has changed so much that this picture cannot be used for re-photography (I tried, it was a disaster, more on that in another post). Not to mention that the point of view is impossible to copy since at that place there are much taller buildings now - one of them, at this exact same spot, a brothel which I am totally not willing to go in. Probably the photographer back then climbed up atop of a roof but right now this image is not only impossible to recognise but also non-doable. Some of the archives were full of amazing images in terms of subject but totally inappropriate for re-photography. 

At the other end of the spectrum were the amazing buildings in downtown that have not changed one bit for the past 130 years. There are some of them and even though I love them - like this building, housing the Ministry of Agriculture (see below) - there is no point to photograph a place that has not changed:

Source: https://www.bgfermer.bg/Article/6269144

I needed places which have changed over those 130 years or so or whose surroundings have changed significantly. On the other hand, I needed pictures shot from angles which I can mimic and of places that are deemed landmarks now.  Moreover, I needed around 18 images to choose from.

The initial selection - in a follow-up post. 

FMP - WIP - image selection - part 1 - why I chose old Sofia

Image selection proved out to be one of the most difficult things in the whole FMP. The reasons were several - too many images to choose from, too little images to choose from, weird angles (I love the air photos but since I do not have the license to fly a drone, or do not own one, for that matter, those were impossible to re-photograph). 

Another obstacle was the very history of Sofia itself - in the XIX and the beginning of the XX century the place looked much different from the modern city center and very few buildings have remained from that period (thanks to the Anglo-American bombings in March 1944 and the subsequent large-scale demolition of the totalitarian regime in the late 1940s). I totally had no interest in photographing Communist architecture, even though there is pretty much to be found around the city. 

My motivation for not doing this was that those buildings have not changed that much for the past decades and if the are has been changed, it is most probably unrecognizable in the picture. Such were the cases with the National Palace of Culture (see below) - maybe one of the ugliest buildings in Sofia altogether - and the so-called Triangle of Power complex in the city center that was built where the old trade streets one stood. 

the National Palave of Culture complex in it full ugliness, seen from the air,
Source: http://ndk.bg/news/predstoyashti-sabitiya-v-ndk-fevruari-7272-1

I didn't want to honour the monuments of a regime that did its best to eradicate what was left of royal Bulgaria and the culture of the Third Bulgarian kingdom. To some extent, the architecture of the Communist era has some kind of a charm of its own but to me it is totally unsuitable for a re-photography. The totalitarian regime was in power for 45 years in Bulgaria and throughout that time all of its creations have been tended with great care. Hence, for the 30 years that followed, there had been enough time for the buildings to age enough (with a very few notorious exceptions) or for the urban landscape to significantly change. 

I wanted to explore a time long lost with the first bombs of WWII - the Sofia of my great-grandfathers. That Old Sofia with looked like the small Vienna of the Balkans, which went to the theater on Friday evening and which had trade relations with half the world. A land of opportunities and exquisite architecture executed by the best of the best architects from Austria, Italy and France. 

I have a fascination for such buildings - the ones built at the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX - with their ornaments, curvy facades and elaborate plan. Before the utilitarianist and modern XX architecture kicked in. 

FMP - research - archive sources - part 3

I kept on looking for old images in social media - mainly because it is really convenient to scroll down on your phone in public transport. That is how I came across some amazing colorised images of Old Sofia. What drew me to the page was this image:

This is an amazing image of the St. Alexander Nevski church in Sofia, one of the landmarks of the city and to-date the biggest Christian Orthodox church on the Balkan peninsula. Today, its gold-plated domes can be seen from virtually any part of the city. But I have never seen a picture of the place under construction. Until I saw this and definitely thought that I need to have it in my project. That is how I discovered the Royal Bulgaria in Colour project. 

The Royal Bulgaria in colour website

They have dedicated some time in colorising images from the period 1878-1944 and most of the images are really mesmerizing to look at. We often forget that while photography was black and white back then, life was still full of colour and fun. What the project does is to collect old images from individuals or libraries, scan them and then colour them in Photoshop. They even published an album with some of the best images from the project - arranged by theme and decade. An amazing book, I have a copy of it and I can say it is something that is necessary to every Bulgarian house (take a look at it, here). 

For months, I've delved in the archives of this project since the images were absolutely amazing. However, as great as the images were and even though the time frame was just what I needed, I couldn't use many of the images. Because, as with the previous two archives, here the stress was on people and events and very rarely on architecture. 

At that point of research, I felt helpless - I didn't even have the required number of images to start with and what I had was actually not good for re-photography (the angles or framing did not match and the images were too few). So I started a random search on the Internet and rediscovered an old blog I used to read - the Old Sofia project that has been going for more than 8 years. They post interesting content about Sofia each week, there is even a game 'guess where this photo is taken and what it is on it' on their Facebook page. The activity of the project is very, very regular and the content they post is usually referenced. There are amazing stories to read and most importantly for me - a ton of architectural images. 

The home page of the blog with the latest post

I spent the better part of several weeks scrolling through the myriad of posts on the blog (since each post is accompanied by a few images) and started selecting the places that I needed to rephotograph (more about that in a follow-up post. 

FMP - research - archive sources - part 2

After being unsuccessful with the research in Lost Bulgaria archive, I needed an alternative. One of the main problems I encountered was that the images were very few and most of the time, impossible to re-shoot (more about that in the WIP part of the blog). 

This is how I came across the images of the Todor Slavchev Photo Archive - found the Facebook page of the project since I was looking for old images far and wide at this stage. There were amazing images of the past that most people have never seen and I was fascinated by the ideas and places that man had visited. After a few days of marveling at the images, I finally decided to look up and find out who that man was and why did he had a passion for creating images of places, events and customs at a time when most people had only one photograph taken in their lives - on their wedding day.

The home page of the website

The research on the archive website proved that Todor Slavchev was one of the first photojournalists in Bulgaria and he spent more than 60 years photographing the world around him. Throughout the years he had managed to photograph some of the most momentous events in Bulgarian history and his archive grew as time went by. 

Currently, the archive is being digitalized and curated by his grand-daughter who decided to share the archive with the world. All images are catalogued with dates and place of use, if available and arranged in categories. Yana Uzunova, that is the name of the grand-daughter, has a lot of online followers and often posts some images (watermarked, of course) in her social media profiles. That is how I found out about the archive in the first place. 

She is a very interesting woman, who puts a stress on copyright but has no problem or objections in granting access to her grandfather's images as long as copyright is stated clearly in the end result (I even wrote a few messages to her and we sort of have some kind of an on-line communication). However, as amazing as Todor Slavchev images were (really, one could learn a lot about composition, fieldwork and the like just by looking at those) they weren't of any use to me. I admire his work because of the amazing ability to shoot candid pictures that simply transport you into the time and place they had been taken, such as this one:

One of the images from the archive - as a screen grab since all images are copyright protected, The caption above it reads: S. Island, Oryahovo town, cleaning of sunflower seed. 

I admire such images and when it comes to the archive of Todor Slavchev, most of the content looks like that - images of people doing something and very rarely and architectural shot. For this reason, even though Yana Uzunova is a lovely and helpful lade, I needed something else.

FMP - research - archive sources - part 1

When you intend to work with old images, the first thing you obviously need to do is to find some old images. In Bulgaria, there are a few options to do this. The biggest archive database is the National Archives - the state organisation whose job is to safeguard the past and the artifacts which it created - artifacts of any kind, that is. The National Archives are a good place to do research if you need some old texts and information. The main problems here were the obvious facts:

1. The National Archives is a state organisation, funded and governed by the state. Hence, anything that happens takes a lot of time. You need to file in an official request (and that request can finally be processed in a month or two if at all), then you will probably spend days researching WHAT you exactly need and only then you will have access to the real content. I have been there, even in the store rooms, and can confirm that the state of the things kept there is something resembling an orderly mess.
2. The second problem is that the amount of images in the National Archives is too big and mostly uncatalogued. That means that even workers in the archives are not fully aware of what is exactly available in the store rooms. 
3. The third and biggest problem of all was, however, a bit different. None of the images stored and kept in the National Archives was actually available in digital format. They had the  negatives or the prints but very few scanned versions you can work with. Plus, even if you want to have something scanned, you need to pay for the process (and the price is per image, quite high for Bulgarian standards)

Having all this in mind (and consulting with older photographers who for some reason had to go and do a research in the archives), I was aware that going there is not an option. Instead of finding some clarity on the nature of my project and what exactly I needed to photograph, I would most likely get overwhelmed by too much and doubtfully relevant information.

This is the reason why I turned to digital archives - websites with image collections one can look though and organised per category. The first one I could think of, was the www.lostbulgaria.com - maybe the biggest on-line image database that is organised per year, theme, region and what not. (see the screen grab below)

This is how the Lost Bulgaria website looks like in the 'search by city section'

It is very easy to do a research there since the content is very clearly categorised. The problem was that there you can find images about pretty much any event in Bulgarian history from the invention of the Daguerreotype onwards BUT most of the images are not about the architecture but about what has happened to the people in the pictures. I tried to search according to city since what I needed were pictures of Sofia - what I love about Lost Bulgaria is that they always scan their images in very high quality. 

When it turned to pure architectural images (or street photography at least, something that I can use for the re-photography project), it turned out that I don't really have that many options. Such images were very few and far between in this website since the database if filled with contributions from random people who decide to scan the old family photos and send them to the team. When you put an image in the family album, it is only natural to have something that is important to you as an individual and to you family as a whole (here is what kind of images one can find under the category 'Sofia' in this website click here).

Hence, these two, apparently very popular options were totally off the table and I needed to find other sources for my old images.