PANORAMIC

At the beginning ... there was a book by Joseph Koudelka "Chaos." He had just received first copy of it. He looked at me, handed to me a sealed in polyethylene book and said: "Look through and tell me what you think about it." Almost for a day I could not let this book out of my hands. It was a shock, delight, love. When we went for a photo shooting together with Joseph, he gave me a handmade panoramic camera to try. I looked through the viewfinder with a "long shot", and in 10 minutes returned the camera back to Koudelka very much to his surprise. I could not “see”.

Five years later, suddenly I felt desire, indeed necessity to stretch the process of viewing photographs. Not an instant moment, but scanning of surrounding, the hitch of attention, movement of the look... I bought Hasselblad XPan and ... For 3 years I was capturing only with this panoramic camera. This was my first serious experience with the rangefinder camera. Panorama fascinated me. Situations are predictable, the frame is constructed with up to half step, and exposure is getting longer, instinctive reaction exacerbated. A little more time and there is a need to change the black and white to color film. And once again there are new challenges and difficulties ... with such "tricky format." On the photographs appears kaleidoscope of flatness and forms, breathable cavities, rhythm of shape, motion (from right to left rather than on turnover!), the central composition - all that I persistently "bypassed” became a working beauty in the panoramic format. The format dictates its own terms, its reality, and its perusal.

Today, for me "little more than a moment "became natural.  Thank you Joseph!

Photography