Past - Present / Reality - Fiction

Budapest, Hungary 2007. 6x7 black and white with large format camera

Diplome work at MOME for MA Photography.

My series consists of cityscapes of the suburs of Budapest, Hungary. The story of the pictures is a personal exploration between past (remembrance, memory, fiction) and present (remembering, reality, here and now). I am mapping my own life and identity through these images: the places that have defined my life.

The pictures were shot with a large format camera, onto 6x7 black and white film.

The shift and tilt tecnhique of the camera enabled me to move away from reality, to transform the scenes into visual memories, sort of dream like images, where you can only see a small clear line (the line of focus) and the rest is blurred. I am connected emotionally to the places I have taken pictures of.

The suburbs of Budapest, where I grew up, appears with a different meaning. The scenes are not ugly, not nice either. I wasn’t choosing according to an esthetic point of view. They had a certain role in my life, and this is what I am searching in this series. It’s through these places that I can define and draw the line of my life.

I have chosen black and white because this expresses the conflict of physical emptiness and emotional tension. There are no colours, just endless black and a few white lights. A sort of timelessness, eternity. Black strenghtens the questioning of realtionships.

As well as being personal, this series also maps the suburbs of Budapest in a more general meaning. These are places that haven’t evolved in the past 30-40 years. These are sort of constants in the visual appearance of the city. Maybe for another 30 years, or maybe just until tomorrow – as this city changes very quickly – due to the developments brought my the capitalist system. This series also explores what’s left unchanged, or what might disappear. Everything is on a very thin line between past and present – or future. Print size: 50 x 64 cm.