“I’ve learned through experience, that people remember pictures long after they’ve forgotten words.” ~ Bill Strickland

Statement

Hello and Welcome – thank you for visiting my website! Photography is a very visual form of self expression, but here I will use words to the best of my ability to tell you what it is I do with the camera. It was during my high school studies in Hungary that I discovered the image. In Technical Drawing and History of Art classes, for the first time in my life I wasn’t looking forward to hearing the bell; I wanted to stay longer to learn and create. This was a crucial time; if it hadn’t been for those classes, I would probably never have picked up a camera at all. I remember vividly a two hour History of Art class on “The Third of May 1808”, Francisco Goya’s famous painting. The teacher talked about every inch of that picture in great detail. By the end of the class, I was astonished: we had just spent two hours on one single picture! I had never previously realised the power an image can hold. I was humbled by the impact and emotional force of Goya’s painting, which I wouldn’t have understood without the aid of my teacher to whom I am indebted to this day. These days, I spend much time looking at certain images, lingering as the thoughts and efforts of the artist reveal themselves.

Technical Drawing taught me discipline and patience. I still believe that this very structured and rigid field is one of the best ways to establish a solid foundation towards understanding composition. It took me a while to see how this had had a lasting effect on my photos. At first I thought of myself as a perfectionist, but this concept is almost nonsensical in the context of landscape photography and indeed an overtly flattering way to describe oneself. It wasn’t perfectionism; the very structured approach I was subconsciously bringing to the composition of my pictures was rooted many years back in my studies of Technical Drawing. I liked to find pattern, geometrical form and symmetry that I thought were comforting to the human eye. I liked to find order in chaos. Once I realised the connection between my past studies and present passion, I embraced it. I felt it was a big step forward in understanding my photographic style.

Beside History of Art and Technical Drawing, I also took up an after school course in photography without the slightest idea that photography would eventually become the primary driver for my self expression. Now I can’t fail to see the irony in that. At the time, this short photography course was merely a fun addition to my general interest in the image.

In 2002, I moved to London and soon after I enrolled in a course doing Film Studies. It would be dishonest to say that I had it all figured out before doing the course, but now that I have graduated, I relish the fact that I have a diverse background to support my efforts in making still images. Photography is about the image, which is generated by many different art forms beside photography. To ignore those would be a big mistake. Having done a course in Film Studies has played an important part in my understanding of the image. As a photographer, I appreciate film makers who are capable of conveying information without overt reliance on dialogue. My favourite director is Brian De Palma, who is an absolute master in doing that. The script for a De Palma film is almost completely irrelevant; he will use the image to tell his story.

At the time of doing the course in Film Studies – around 2005 – I took up photography again. This was a fairly random move, probably due to accessibility and affordability. However, I very soon realised that photography was it for me. I gradually came to see how my past led me to my present. This is a very exciting time for photography. What is possible today was simply inconceivable only a few years back. The tool that we use to make images is rapidly changing as we speak, allowing photographers to push the boundaries further and further. And as the tool changes, so the image changes. Unlike some tend to say, the relationship between tool and image is inherent and inevitable. We should embrace that and not fear change. I chose landscape and cityscape photography as the focus of my passion because this is where I believe the composition to be most important. In landscape photography – unless one’s purpose is merely to document a location – the subject is almost irrelevant; what matters is what one does with it. This area within photography is purely about the image. And all that truly matters to the photographer is the image. And it is everywhere. Photography, cinema, animation, paintings, graphic novels, video games are all around us generating millions of images constantly. I feel very fortunate to live in a highly stimulating environment where inspiration is everywhere. I gladly embrace this and I hope to make some contributions of my own to this amazingly diverse world of the image.