SUMMARY 2011/03

The first article in this volume is Sándor Bacskai’s interview with AFIAP prize-winner and Székely Aladár laureate photo artist Károly Chochol. “As a 13-year-old shorts-wearing boy, I used to go with my parent’s written permission to the Budapest Fotóklub (Budapest Photo Club). Photo tours were held on Sundays, and we looked over and reviewed collectively photos made during the tours, at the Tuesday club meetings. It was amazing, that famous photo artists like Frigyes Haller, Zoltán Zajky, Kálmán Szöllősy, Ernő Vadas or Pál Angelo always made their comments, criticized the photos but they did it helpfully, I still wonder why they took so generously their time for dealing with us.”

In “Modelling” Virág Böröczfy comments on Ágnes Éva Molnár’s photos: “Her photos made against dark homogeneous background take all stereophonic base off the feet of the interpreter, the selection within the series of pictures of players in costume, modern ordinary clothing prevent from placing the scenes into a sort of uniform cultural context, and what is more, in her last two series her aim is apparently to break down myths surrounding the coverage of reality of the pictures, and to point out the relativity of representation schemes and their dependence on the context.

In “End of a period” Rita Somosi writes about the graduating class of the Faculty of Photographing at Moholy-Nagy Art Academy, naming the following: Viola Fátyol, Lili Érmezei, Andrea Vinkó Gáldi, Sári Zagyva, Dániel Halász, Kristóf Cabello-Colini, Viktor Juhász, Máté Bartha, Alexandra Emese Lázár, Katalin Tarsó, Alíz Veronika Ács, Benedek Bognár, Antal Gabelics, Miklós Izsó, Dávid Kovács, Máté Lukács, Zsuzsa Marinka, Daphné Szamarasz, Máté Varga.

This year the International Photography Prize of the Hasselblad Foundation has been awarded to Lebanon-born Walid Ra’ad, who is presented to the Readers by Gábor Pfisztner. “Most of all he wants to digest the trauma caused by a fifteen year-long period during which physical atrocities, killings were day-to-day events, even if these were happening (ostensibly) under institutional conditions. For Ra’ad, presumably much more important is the question what can one do with such a past, how can this be processed (not scientifically), how could muddled human relationships be normalized.”

György Szegő reports on the professional photo exhibition of Peril Fund founded to save Venice, namely on the pictures of Candida Höfer, Dionisio Gonzalez, Antonio Girbés, Hiroshi Watanabe, Jules Spinatsch, Lynne Cohen, Matthias Schaller, Mimmo Jodice, Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca di Corcia, Pierre Gonnord, Robert Walker, Tiina Itkonen and Tim Parchikow. “Photographers of the exhibition were governed by two kinds of attitude: one is critical-ironic, the other one is delighting apocalyptic” – he notes.

Anne Kotzan reports on the events of the Arles Photo Festival organised for the forty-second time this year. “Contrary to the general view that the golden age of photographing is drawing to a close, François Hébel arts director of Rencontres d’Artes pointed out, photographing has never been more dynamic, more contradictory and more important than now-adays. While in 2002 the importance of digital photographing came into prominence when organizing the programme of the festival, this year Internet presence of the pictures has been put into the focus.”

The subtitle of Part 3 of Gábor Pfisztner’s series about Contemporary photo art is Dizzy height, overwhelming depth?. “Already in its genesis photography had been in contradictory situation. As art it could not belong to high culture because the picture was made by means of a mechanical instrument in compliance with applied scientific theories. As science it could have had however a good chance. William Henry, developer of one of the first photographic processes was unlikely to be concerned about it. What thrilled him was to immortalize the unique beauty of nature.”

Péter Baki tried to track down László Moholy-Nagy’s photograph HELSINKI. ”The question is, exactly where the picture was made. Namely, it is unlikely that in the thirties there had been too many places in the town from where roofs could be seen at such a look-down angle. All the indications are that the place chosen by Moholy-Nagy was the Hotelli Torni (Tower Hotel).”

Éva Fisli and Emőke Tomsics write about a chamber exhibition in the Hungarian National Museum: “In the seventies André Kertész himself, too published photographs made in Paris and New York arranged in photo-pairs in albums J’aime Paris and Of New York. After more than three decades we put the two big cities side by side while selecting enlargements of that time from the rich international collection of the Historical Photo Archives.”

The subject of Emese Révész’s essay is Role of photography in the early paintings of István Csók. “He started his career at a time when using a photographic prototype was already part of teaching painting at art academies. By that time the photograph became a generally accepted aid in art practice. In Paris he was probably informed by his friend József Rippl-Rónai that the famous and admired realistic master, Mihály Munkácsy also used to take photographs of his set models.”

Dr. Viola Veréb provides important information in Copyright options and restrictions – through the lens of the camera. “The photographer can show his/her original way of seeing things but works subject to copyright protection can be created while developing a negative or editing a digital photo which is also protected by copyright, and if it is done not by the person who made the photo but by someone else based on the original photographic works, then he/she is also due to the copyright.

Zoltán Fejér gets the Readers to know the first Hungarian photo artist Mihály Rupprecht better. “He was the first Hungarian photographer to participate at an international photo exhibition; in 1873 he was awarded honorary diploma in London and he won a gold medal in Moscow. In 1873 at the Vienna World Expo he was awarded a medal for merit and a gold cross of distinction. In 1874 he received ‘recognition’ in Paris. In 1875 he won silver medal in Philadelphia, in 1876 he was honoured by the Jury of the exhibition in Szeged. In 1878 he won another gold medal in Paris and he was awarded gold medal at the Triest exhibition in 1882. He was awarded the Millennium Grand Cross on his 25th jubilee celebration in Budapest at the 1896 Millennium Expo.”

Zsuzsa Farkas has examined the impact of Trade Act 1875 on photographers. “In terms of the Trade Act the lists of old guilds were declared void, and the District (Commercial) Courts registered the enterprises, hereby newly listing them. Photographers already existing who had been owner of trade-certificate, again applied for registering them onto the list of individual or collective companies. I have found useful information in the volumes 1876 to 1882 of Központi Értesítő (Central Bulletin).”

György Sümegi writes about the Lessons of using photographs of the 1956 revolution by Attila Alapfy. “The photo bequest of the 1956 revolution went through a number of grave troubles. When those photos were made, they were given high appreciation due to the documentation of an event of historical importance, they were collected, some of them exchanged. Shortly after the suppression of the revolution culling of these most important photographic proofs, as well as interrogation of photographers started.”

In this part of his series – Colour treatment processes – László Pusztai writes: “This time those colour treatment processes are discussed that can be met in everyday picture processing work, such as conversion of colour spaces, practicable conversion methods, as well as how to simulate colour display capabilities of a printer or of a printing machine on our monitor.”

The subtitles of the second part of Attila Montvai’s series – “Farsightedness” – are: Applied algorithms; Mathematical correctness; Redimensioning of a RAW file; Visually correct?