Sarajevo

In September 2013, I traveled through Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia with my friend Trisha.  This turned out to be the most thought-provoking, interesting, beautiful and enjoyable trip of the many that I have taken.

Our first stop was Sarajevo, a city that is difficult to separate from its war-torn recent past, but that is so much more.  This is what I remember most about the city that I quickly came to love.  The morning call to prayer from the neighborhood mosque awakening me each morning.  The narrow, cobblestone pedestrian streets of the Old Town.  The wide, tram-tracked streets of the modern area.  The warm and friendly people, who spoke English but patiently welcomed my broken Bosnian.

The understandable anger that lingers.

The romance of the old architecture juxtaposed with hundreds of gravestones.

The grim dilapidation of the Yugoslav architecture, sometimes bearing scars of shelling and shooting.

The cake.  All day, at any time of day, the people of Sarajevo seemed to be eating cake at outdoor cafes.  We eagerly joined in on this cultural pastime.

The group of well-dressed older gentleman gathered around to watch a huge game of chess. 

The thick, strong Bosnian coffee.  

The stunning view from above, made chilling by the knowledge that snipers used the same vantage-point to murder citizens during the siege.  

The quiet beauty of a 18th century garden and home-turned-museum.   

The emergence of the sun and clear skies that lifted our spirits.

The 1984 Winter Olympics bobsled course in ruins.

The delicious blackberries.

The local couple who came to this vista with lawn chairs, a bottle of Jager and a boom box.  

The gut-wrenching exhibits on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Srebrenica genocide.

The quiet public parks and green spaces.

The two quirkiest quirks: the borderline absurd pedestrian situation and the cat graffiti (!).  

As tourists, we barely scratched the surface of the city and would like to return to experience more.  After four days in Sarajevo, our next stop was to Mostar via bus.  To be continued...

Places

Halvat Hotel - a lovely inn near Old Town with welcoming proprietors and breakfast in the morning.

Sarajevo Funky Tours - goofy name, fascinating and friendly tours.

Svrzo's House - the aforementioned museum.

Restoran Kibe - the best meal of the trip.

Dveri - another delicious meal.

Ranunculus, Part II

My cat loves sticking his nose in my business.

I love the light that comes through my bedroom window in the early evening.  I took these photos at the same time as the instant ones I posted earlier.  These are much lighter because I was working with 400 speed film and a 1.8F lens with my Nikon SLR, versus 100 speed film and a 2.8F lens with my Mamiya medium format (although I can handhold my Mamiya at 1/30, versus 1/60 for my Nikon, so that helps).

{photos: nikon fm2 and kodak portra 400 film}

My Gallery Wall

I believe in the power of surrounding myself with personal and tangible objects, in film and prints and freeing photography from the constraints of a computer screen.  

Yet I realized a few months ago that, while my flickr and tumblr are filled with photographs from hundreds of rolls of film, my home had none of my photographic prints on display.  

Shameful.  

I set out to remedy the problem and - viola - I now have a gallery wall of my own prints in my hallway.  This is only the beginning; I plan to continue adding on until the entire wall is filled.    

These are all photographs featuring my travels and the people I love, taken with my film cameras, mostly my Rollei TLR and Nikon FM2, plus a couple Mamiya 645 and Holga.  I printed several of the B&W photographs myself in the darkroom and the rest I ordered through Richard Photo Lab (beautiful work!) using scanned negatives.

Acquiring the frames was expensive: one archival quality matted frame is not much, but multiply that number by fifteen and the costs add up.  I had to accept this as a longterm investment in my home and my art.  The best quality and value combination I found was American Frame kits, assembly required.

Designing the wall layout was such a challenge for me that I left the frames stacked on the floor for three months.  My heartfelt thanks to my dear friend Trisha who, while visiting from Nashville, created the pattern and helped me hang all the frames in one morning.

In summary, here is what you need to create your own gallery: wall space, prints, frames (preferably archival and matted), a design, a Trisha, frame hangers, wire, a hammer, and a free morning.  :)

Free those photographs.

The Unique Beauty of Aging Bouquets

Keeping vases of flowers in my house is a new habit of mine.  In the past, I did not see the point of buying flowers, only to have them die so soon.  Now I am beginning to appreciate the unique beauty of the lifecycle - perhaps due to my own aging.  While I love the luxurious scent and vitality of fresh blossoms, I enjoy flowers more once they start to crinkle and fade, creating a more interesting visual than bright perfection.   For a prime example, see my masthead above, an aging tulip. For another example, below:

These photographs, which I took last night with my Nikon FM2 and Kodak Portra 400 film, show pink carnations that my friend brought when I had her over for dinner...two weeks ago.  Go carnations, go.