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About vrh

About my photography

Black and white & color film photography

03 Jan 2016

So, it is quite a challenging task to describe 35 years in photography in just a few words and pictures. Layout of this site I originally posed as a review and a compilation of my work in entirety, but it turned out it would take several months if not years. Gradually matured a different, more fragmentary and modest concept, part of which is now presented and still unveiling, yet never to be completed entirely, I suppose.

 

Photos presented on this site are a selection of series from the early years to the present days. The last one Graveyard aristocracy is from 2014.    

 

Remark - no digital photography. But, obviously one cannot escape digitalizing his work in order to be put on web site. In most cases pictures are made from scanned negatives or scanned negative photo paper, some are scans of positives made in darkroom.

 

During next few months there will be more projects added to the site and I'm even considering opening a blog. All visitors are invited to contact me for whatever reason. I will gladly answer to anyone.

 

Please respect that all images and contents of this site is copyrighted. If you want to use any part of this site for any other purpose apart from viewing, please contact me for a written permission. It is also possible to get full resolution scans or prints. Thank you.

 

Anton Bukovnik, photographer

Pinhole photography on photo paper

04 Jan 2016

You are about to enter a magical pinhole world where nothing is as it should be. Meet enchanted landscapes otherwise only imaginable with eyes closed. Places where light is bending around a corner, a small table has become an immense performance stage, stone is trapped into a light hole, eyes have troubled minds, water does not recognize physical laws ...        


All photos were taken with DIY round coffee or paint cans turned into pinhole cameras on long long expired photo paper. Due to 25 years of storage in photo paper very unfriendly conditions, emulsion on paper has become partially destroyed by mold and fungi.   

 

Photo above has been used by my dear friend and music composer Borut Kržišnik for one of his projects. That's how this series got its name.

About ... Orange series

Black and white film photography

04 Jan 2016

A magic of photography is much more than a human eye perceives. A powerful conscious or unconscious bond between the photographer and the viewer is established only if the photographer somehow managed to draw the viewer to process information with the same sensory system he used in a process of making the photo; to get the viewer on the same energy wave length. Photo is only a mediator between them.

 

A bizarreness of this series is that it started completely unintentionally, almost by accident. One day I've got a sheet of pearl orange gelatin filter, which is otherwise used for color correction in front of light source. When put it in front of the lens nothing could be seen through the viewfinder but few contrasting contours with only faint idea what film could capture. In other words, I immediately became hooked. Caught by surprise with results the Orange series started and it lasted as long as last filter was cut out from the sheet and finally lost in high wavy grass of Ljubljana marsh.

About ... Nature series

Black and white film photography

04 Jan 2016

A majority of this series was created over a longer time span within the Orange series, so they have much in common. Like all other series, this one is human-free, too.

 

Few years ago I was talking with the American painter who had Slovenian roots and who I admire very much Gary Bukovnik ... as it sometimes happens in large families he is also my cousin ... that we share the same rainbow ...  just on the opposite sides. See yourself.

About ... Graveyard aristocracy

Ljubljana graveyard Žale

04 Jan 2016

The series is named after the end of a quote by Diane Arbus on freaks. Although quotation here is torn from its context, it is brilliant:

 

"Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats."

 

It takes only a small conceptual leap to say Death to be the ultimate test in life. Simon Marsden’s narrative in documentary film The Twilight Hour describes that in many cultures there’s a belief each person has a shadow or a double known as a cart which lives on inside of tomb when their physical body dies. Here it is kept alive with fresh offerings of food and drink - today with flowers and candles. Spiritual world runs parallel to our physical, so called real world. When conditions are right we can see into and become a part of a super natural domain.

   

Graveyard aristocracy series has been meant to be just an intermezzo between two major ones, but it turned out to be the most challenging of all series so far. It’s been mentally exhausting above all. For four months of photographing day and night, practically living at the graveyard and experiencing all kinds of things, I've been very close to abandoned the very first concept. This series is to be continued ... when conditions are going to be right ... or not going to be right.

 

All photos were taken at Ljubljana graveyard Žale in 2015.

About ... Waterfall Kosca

Human-free zone from the another world

16 Jan 2016

In a quiet although not so remote corner of our landscape lies Waterfall Kosca (Koški slapovi). The path along the stream that winds through the woods to the waterfall is like a journey through creepy tales of my childhood. On the way to the waterfall you almost expect chubby little angels behind every tree and quick feet little devils to cross your path. And the waterfall itself looks like an altar in purgatory. The path and the waterfall are so divorced from reality that you have to see it to believe it. That’s why it became my favorite place of refuge, partially because it’s also almost human-free.

 

Well, it’s been a refuge for years, until natural disaster in form of a sleet struck two years ago. Devastating effect of the ice on forest entirely changed landscape. Photos were taken during twilight hours and at night with large format 4x5 camera.

About ... Abandoned village Slapnik

For a long time without a human soul

03 Feb 2016

Shabby walls and with ivy overgrown ruins and terraces of the ghost village Slapnik after 20 or 30 years of the abandonment gives only a faint insight in time before last inhabitant has left it. Yet, everything in buildings has been left in place in manner that suggests »I'll come back soon. Don't touch anything«. And it really seems village is untouched. Glasses, bottles, ashtrays, shoes, clothing … only thick layer of dust and dirt reveals nobody is going to come around a corner.

About ... Time passing by

Castles, fortresses, manors, mansions, monasteries ... in Slovenia and in the vicinity

16 Jan 2016

Still underway is a 4-year project (hopefully to be completed in 2017) of visiting locations which disclose an elusive time (not) passing by. Castles, fortresses, mansions and monasteries. Sometimes in form of mere lone stones and sometimes preserved in all past glory. Each one is distinctive in one way or another. What's keeping me visiting such places (and returning to some) above all is energy kept in places, stones, wood, attraction to the presence of the past. Sometimes reasons cannot be explained entirely rationally.

 

Because of the geostrategic position through history Slovenia has had extremely large number of Castles, fortresses, manors and mansions. Over 1.100 registered, just to mention. If you could evenly spread them, of course this is highly hypothetical, over our landscape, they would be only 8 km or less apart from each other. In other words, from one historical building you could see four surrounding it. Therefore, medieval historical tradition is deeply rooted in our collective memory. Visit this web site and you'll see.

 

The project involves more than 220 sites, of which 186 have been visited so far. Almost all pictures are recorded on Infrared film and scanned from negatives.

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