WouldKillForAGoodName!~

I’ve just realised these are all real numbers! Exactly one week after I started my “Roma kids” portrait project, I ended up with 7 rolls of film and 7 “best photos”. Not to mention that 7 rolls makes 70 frames! :)

Anyway, this has been a tough week! Being there, at Roma settlements under Gazela bridge, almost every day… not an easy thing to do! Physically, mentally, financially! Matt and Sanja can tell you even better—sometimes they’ve been there a couple of times a day!

At first I had a bit of trouble working with Pentax 6x7 cm camera (borrowed from Luka), but not because it’s complicated. The whole way of seeing pictures with medium format camera and film is just different. I realized I became too spoiled with digital. Take a bunch of photos, variations of the same scene, even the identical frame (for no reason), don’t pay attention to details, contrasts—that’s not the way it works with medium format/film.

So, in a sense, this week has been all about film “rectifying” my way of working. But, it payed off, a lot! Thank you film! xoxo

Last couple of days I was trying to figure out exactly how to start that Roma-kids project I mentioned a while ago. Some conceptual issues are still bugging me, while I try to collect all the equipment I need. Not to mention their settlement under the Gazella bridge will be dislocated (read: buldozed) in next few days! I must react quickly.

I have definitely decided to go for slide film, medium format—6x7 cm (bye-bye money savings!). Apart from the kids dressed in their best outfits, I’ll try to portrait their parents too, and possibly get that “displacement” context with the different backgrounds. At first there’s bridge in the back, and all the hand-made carton “houses” (their current living space), then stuff being moved / crushed in the back (possibly with their angry/sad faces), and then the new metal containers (new, “sterile” homes).

I hope this will all work out.
Or maybe I shouldn’t tell you all this stuff? :-)

Two days ago, a terrible thunder strikes awoke me early in the morning. They were so intense and so close, that I was sure it was some kind of bombing. I clearly heard three or four “explosions”, immediately jumped at my window, totally frightened.

Now, I never think of bombings when I hear petards (even the “dynamite” ones), fireworks or whatever, but this was so extreme! And it woke me up, so I had no idea what’s going on… It reminded me of the first tomahawk bombs which striked relatively near my flat. My friend had a good view of the bomb from his window, and he was yelling, in a kind of excited voice “I see it, I see it, it is so slow, it’s about to hit the ground, I see it!”. Then we saw the flash. A moment later, the ground was shaking like it was an earthquake. It was no fun anymore.

Anyway, I guess there really is some sub-conscious kind of trauma of NATO bombings, although I never got that so “personal”. Or is it impossible?

Now playing: Whitesnake - Here I Go Again