Hungary [antikvár]

I began my career as a photographer about twenty years ago by photograph-ing museum objects and architectural monuments. From the mid-1970s onwards, I would leave Budapest or my second home in Balatonszólós from time to time and tour the country, taking photographs of all the interesting areas, sceneries, and buildings that came my way and caught my attention. My first photo album was published in 1978 under the title Balaton and its Environs with Dezso Keresztury's poems. Encouraged by its success, I published another album, TokajCountryside in Changing Light, with text by István Lázár.In my approach to photographing various parts of the country, I have received much help from my ethnographer and art historian friends, but no less valuable has been the guidance extended by enthusiastic local patriots who love their towns or villages like their own children. I was driven by their great enthusiasm, and went on to translate experiences I had in different parts of Hungary into photographs.When photographing open country or an object, my first and foremost concern is the co-existence and interaction of man and his environment. More important than making portraits for me is how I discover and provide a way for others to see man in his carefully cultivated vineyard harmonizing succinctly with the countryside, or in front of a peasant cottage that bears the unmistakable signet of its builder. In the course of my wanderings I have very often been captivated by roadside crosses: they express the spirit of community, of human fate. Similarly the master's soul, the character of the man who commissioned the work are very much present in the murals in village churches, the porches of peasant homes, the sumptuous rooms in stately homes.The pictures in this volume were selected from some two thousand photographs. If the reader does not find the usual pictures here he will perhaps be compensated by others that reveal hidden beauties and a view of Hungary like no other he has ever seen.Károly Szelényi