BRUNO BOUREL . PHOTOGRAPHER

from  L1GHTB1TES another gem from György László

GL: Any image is a record of two roads crossing: the person behind camera walks onto the path of the person in front of it. How did this meeting happen?
BB: This picture was born like many others of mine, like almost all of them. First, I check out if something is happening today in the town (or in the world) I am living in. For the past almost 20 years this city has been Budapest. That day in 2004, Hungary was celebrating joining the European Union. Having lived here – at that time – for more than 10 years, I knew that e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e was waiting for this moment. A huge, festive weekend took place and I was out with friends and kids, strolling on the waterfront, on the Buda side. When I had the feeling that something was about to happen I stopped and waited and told my friends that we’d meet somewhere later. Ninety-eight percent of the time I am alone when I work, but I remember that this day, there were many of us around.
GL: The metaphor we use when talking about ‘capturing a moment’ is misleading in some ways. A moment like this is about the years, months or minutes leading up to it that get you ready, as a photographer, as an observer to capture it.
Bruno_Bourel_Jaszai Mari ter-2BB: This is very difficult to explain. This is maybe the essence of the medium. To reach that rare moment of grace where everything is (?!) or seems to be perfect, seems to fall into place for the structure of the image: light, composition, emotions and above all – for me – the strength of a picture to go beyond time, the particular date or year that it was taken. No relation to time, just an instant extended to a whole lifetime. I think an image could guide or live with you until you die!!!
One has to disappear in front of the model, being at the right time at the right place and being willing to share a human emotion. I think I am walking on a very thin line: many subjects and topics all guided by the light that surrounds me and the goal is to go beyond the surroundings and to show the inner light!!!
And yes this requires concentration, paying attention almost every minute while at work. After all, everything is in front of you, but you do have to pick it up!!!

 

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Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century – review

Another reason for visiting London this summer is the exhibition of Hungarian photography at the Royal Academy, here is a review of the exhibition from the Guardian/Observer by Laura Cumming

Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century explores the legacy of innovative Hungarian photographers from Brassaï to Robert Capa – pioneers of photojournalism, fashion photography and surrealism. At the Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 2 October

“Eyewitness, the Royal Academy’s first foray into photography in almost a generation, turns out to have been worth the wait. The show is a revelation from beginning to end. It presents nothing less than the dark and convulsive story of Hungary during the 20th century as experienced by its citizens, and viewed by its artists, who happen to include five of the world’s greatest photographers – Brassaï, Capa, Kertész, Moholy-Nagy and Munkácsi.

Nobody could fail to be struck by that fact, in room after room of famous images. That they were all Hungarians may even come as news. Each was Jewish and each changed his name at some stage, either at home or in exile. Brassaï (born Gyula Halász), who was badly wounded fighting for Hungary in the first world war and nearly died of typhoid as a prisoner of the Romanians, left for Paris in 1924. His images of its streets and bars in rain and fog, and especially in the low glow of night, inflect our whole sense of that city.”.…more

Wedding, Budapest, 1965 by László Fejes, which, with its depiction of bullet holes in the wall, led to Fejes being banned from publishing his photographs. Photograph: Hungarian Museum of Photography

Martin Munkácsi, Four Boys at Lake Tanganyika, c 1930

Ernö Vadas, Procession, Budapest, 1934 Photograph: Hungarian Museum of Photography

André Kertész, Brassaï, Capa: Hungarian photography – in pictures