This special book is a mixture of a photo album and a keepsake written by 40+1 authors – journalists, publicists, photographers, artists among them. Versatile texts were inspired by morpho’s photos as well as the song on the attached cd, which was created in honour of this book. The song with the title of Hajnali ajándék (Daybreak gift) was composed and performed by Ütött-Kopott Angyal (Shabby Angel). Lyrics was written by Péter Pál Hetesi/G3, who passed away young, this song being his last piece. The song was recorded in Jamie Winchester’s studio.

Creators of the book are linked by one thing: the photographer himself, who gave every author a picture and asked them to add their own thoughts. The result can be enjoyed not only through the pages of the book, but besides the song 40 pictures (ready to save and print) were put onto the cd attached to the book. (Hella Szerepi)

Negative

Family photos only conserve smiling faces. Birthdays, Christmases, weddings, holidays. People take pictures of their happy moments as if there was not anything else existing. If you browsed family albums, you would come to a conclusion that people live happily, carefree, with no tragedies at all. Nobody records the things they want to forget about. If your house gets on fire, what is the thing you save right after the cat, the turtle and grandma? Family photos. People somehow like conserving the past, like showing that ‘I was there, existing, young and happy’, moreover I was so important for someone that I was conserved. At least for a moment.

Meanwhile the digital age has arrived, and everything has changed. The hobby of taking photos became second nature. Tourists take a picture of everything. They shoot whatever moves. They do not even have a look at what they can see (or other: cannot see), but pictures are taken in commercial amount. The main character dominating the pictures of course is not the sculpture of David or the Eiffel-tower, but cameras of the other tourists swagging in. Then at home you can show what you have seen. Anyway you did not see it, just took a picture of it. A real tourist cannot start for a day in a strange town without a camera in front of his or her face.

Those little things which seem to be insignificant are not pictured, however those reflect our life. A cheese grater, the ant trap in the kitchen or a piano string is also part of your everydays, still you never make pictures of those kind of things. But the essence hides in the details. I have been making photographs for twenty years now. During the twenty years this and that happened, but the digital revolution has changed everything. To put it mildly rivals have appeared. Mobile mania has swept away it all. By my 40th birthday my profession has practically disappeared, and I am not even to blame. Nowadays a mobile is not a mobile without a camera. The number of mobile phones exceeds the whole Hungarian population including babies. We have become the country of 10 million photographers, and the mass population of the planet has not been mentioned yet. Everyone has become a potential photographer from primary school students to ingenuous grandfathers of pensioner’s clubs. A day cannot pass without taking a photograph. Photo labs are closed, the production of photographic films finished, the power to select ceased.Digitalization and the internet has created the possibility of everyone to become a photographer, a composer, a journalist, an editor, a graphic designer or anything else. Crisis of values, I could say, but the world is just like that. It would be very boring without changes.

These pictures were taken by accident during the last twenty years, as a by-product, one might say. I did not think they would ever be published. However here is the occasion to take, I will never be 40 again anyway. I have deliberately selected the pictures taken on negative as part of slight nostalgia, but that is also over, so much about the analogue. It was great fun. I do not think I will ever take a photo on film. However photos are unbreakably for ever, it does not matter if they are made of particles of silver halide or pixels.

I am grateful to all the authors to have taken part in this profane game and to have written a text to my pictures. It is not that easy to find 40 literate people. Especially nowadays…

morpho

7 June 2012, Budapest

Footnote: The above ‘main body’ does not contain even a trace of quotations by Nikolay Guerorguiev or Klaus Heinemann.