Veli Brijun, Croatia

There are places I have been repeatedly in the past three decades. After a first visit I learn my way around a city and feel at home. But when I am about to visit a new city or region, I maximize the element of surprise and discovery by not reading about where I am going. A friend told me “if you do not know where you are going, one day you will end up somewhere else”. In fact it has happened only once that I ended up on the wrong domestic flight and discovered it after take-off! But that was before the million checking points we now have at our airports…

I did not know what to expect when I started my trip to Zagreb, Croatia, then a small plane flight to the Brijuni Islands. When the ferry stopped at the port of Veli Brijun, the largest of the 14 islands in the Northern Adriatic Sea, it felt like a port in the Mediterranean- I was home!

The Brijuni Islands have a rich history left upon the rocky shores by many civilizations and countries. The most recent transition was from belonging to Italy to becoming part of Yugoslavia in 1945. Given their splendor, the President Marshal Josip Broz Tito made these islands his personal State Summer Residence. Today they are conference centers and the previously government-owned buildings have been transformed to hotels. But the island is also famous for its zoo (till 2010 there were even two elephants given to Tito as present by Indira Gandhi), ponies, deer roaming free on the islands and birds of all feather. Veli Brijun is also rich with WWI and WWII artifacts and constructions, one of them being the remnants of a fort built by Austria. It was full moon over those walls when I enjoyed a Malvazia wine at midnight.

While one gets an out-of-time feeling walking the shores of the island, there was little for me to photograph (a nature photographer would have saved a million pictures on his memory card!). However, I finally found a memorable frame in the museum of the island where Tito had the habit of immortalizing the dead zoo and islands animals through taxidermy. This pigeon, shown to be released for peace and celebration by Tito, was also soon after its short flight, delivered to the taxidermist!

October 15, 21013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

São Paulo, Brazil

During my first business visit I was asked to not bring a camera because it was strongly advised that I do not walk the streets alone. Especially with a strange looking camera hanging from my neck. So, I stayed in the hotel and went to my meetings as suggested. But I felt like I missed an important aspect of my trip by not seeing the city and walking its streets as I have done in most corners of the globe.

So, on my second visit I brought a Ukrainian Zorkii with me. The logic was that if it gets "permanently borrowed" by someone in the street, I will not feel as bad as if it were my Leica IIIF.

Again, for liability reasons, the inviting company did not want me to walk the streets alone. But knowing my desire to see the city, they gracefully assigned a guide to take me places.

I did not have much personal time and had only one evening free. So, for a couple of hours went to the central market and to the Armenian church. I felt uncomfortable taking pictures, as people were looking at me with discomfort, obviously a visitor, walking around with a guide. Nevertheless, I clicked a few times using zone focusing.

The first picture captures the feeling I had in these rough neighborhoods. This young man was selling used windshield wipers and his posture seemed to tell the story of a less than kind life.

The second picture is from just outside the market. The woman next to the post was "in another sphere".

As always the pictures were taken in B&W on Ilford 100 ASA film. 

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2013

Near Budrio, Italy

A few kilometers outside of Bologna, Budrio is one of those small towns one visits only to see how life can stay still when everyone around you has become global and with little identity.
I was told that the authentic Ocarina (a flute like musical instrument which looks like a goose without a head) in terracotta could be bought in Budrio only. Not sure if that is the case but the idea of seeing some of the oldest baroque churches in the region of Emilia Romagna was enough for driving an hour outside of Bologna.

Unfortunately I do not recall the name of this church just outside of Budrio. Like many in that region, it was inconspicuous and humble. There was nothing special for a photographer, except that in a second, the sun inundated the walls of this church and gave the somber feel of the stone walls a color and amazing brightness.

I had my Nikon F2 with a Nikkor 50mm 1.4 hanging from my neck, and wanted to capture that contrast of light, prayer, and history.

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Fighting Mantis

This is not the kind of picture I take. Yet, this mantis had a distinct anthropomorphic attitude. So, as an inhabitant of the street, I decided to include it in my memories of streets I have crossed, or just walked through.

I do not even know why I noticed it. Right there, on the sidewalk. I stopped and it instantly assumed the pugilist posture. I had seen mantis seemingly take the "praying" position, but not a fighting one! Of course all this is a human's optic and no idea what it means for a mantis.

I had my 1970's Ukrainian Salyut-C medium format camera hanging from my neck, and perhaps it was to relieve my muscles from the 4 pounds of steel and glass that I stopped. Amazingly the mantis took this posture for only a few seconds and I was able to click once. Then it returned to looking like a mantis, next to fallen branches, on the sidewalk.

I had forgotten taking this picture. When I looked at the negative in my darkroom, I realized how symmetrical the "arms" were. And how much, suddenly, this 2 inch long critter looked like an extra-terrestrial!!

Maybe it was?

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Fell's Point, Baltimore

Fell's Point is a few blocks of bars and eclectic stores on the ocean. Like many parts of historical Baltimore, it was home to sailors when Baltimore was a vibrant port on the East Cost. Today, it is most alive at night and during holidays. It is part of the city where having a good time is a way of life. At almost any time of the year one can see magnificent yachts and sailboats anchored at the piers and expensive cars slowly driven over the cobble stone streets.

But like in any city, the yachts are not the entire picture. One can also meet folks who are homeless, hungover, or hungry. And while the fish and crabs around Fell's Point do not live in the best of waters, many rely on an old fishing rod and twisted fishing line to secure their dinner.

I took this picture to capture the two facets of this area of Baltimore. While there are no yachts and sailboats in this frame, one can see the ghostly background of expensive apartment buildings on the waterfront. It is my way to show social contrast, on B&W film.

Taken with an early 1970s Olympus OM-1 and a Vivitar 135mm CF short tele lens of the same era.

This one has a story created by the lens itself! I have a relatively rare 1949 Industar-22 lens made in Kazan, Russia. It does have a capricious character and depending on the light, alters the picture in an unpredictable way. This woman seems to perform an act of self-disappearance!

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013