Budapest Through My Lens

Fülszöveg

This publication is dedicated to my mother and father (rest his soul), and to my four brothers but especially for my dear mother Elif^abeth, who has always supported me and allowed me the freedom, permission and love to grow, develop, explore, travel, choose, survive, falter and succeed in my life on this planet Earth
Internationally recognized photographer, originally from New York, Stephen Spinder is well travelled and now calls home wherever there is a large folk dance festival. He has photographed the Gothic spires and Neo-classic facades of Budapest since 1991, and is also reputed for his sensitive images of the Hungarian folklor of Transylvania. His collections are well received in the international business/diplomatic community and adorn some of the newest office buildings in Budapest. These limited edition prints are captured in color, and black and white, the latter sepia-toned to render the historic 'feel' of the city's 'Golden Age'.
Budapest - In Love With A City... Tovább

Fülszöveg

This publication is dedicated to my mother and father (rest his soul), and to my four brothers but especially for my dear mother Elif^abeth, who has always supported me and allowed me the freedom, permission and love to grow, develop, explore, travel, choose, survive, falter and succeed in my life on this planet Earth
Internationally recognized photographer, originally from New York, Stephen Spinder is well travelled and now calls home wherever there is a large folk dance festival. He has photographed the Gothic spires and Neo-classic facades of Budapest since 1991, and is also reputed for his sensitive images of the Hungarian folklor of Transylvania. His collections are well received in the international business/diplomatic community and adorn some of the newest office buildings in Budapest. These limited edition prints are captured in color, and black and white, the latter sepia-toned to render the historic 'feel' of the city's 'Golden Age'.
Budapest - In Love With A City
''udapest has always been a crossroads, a ice where empires have come and gone, where diverse cultures have intersected. Today, some folks come to visit and stay a week. Others are sent by a parent company and leave upon completion of die contract. Still others, looking for a place to go, somehow end up here and find in Budapest a relatively low cost of living and an abundant market for teaching English.
For me, the reasons were none of the above. As a dancer, I had become fascinated widi die syncopated rhythms, the improvisatíonal boot-slapping and body-whacking, die strength in whirling the women around, die machismo of traditional Hungarian folk dancing. When I saw it for the first time, in America, I remember saying, "Hey that's how I dance, what's it called?" I was invited to come see the real thing, in Budapest and in Transylvania.
In die fall of 1991, despite the slow march of consumerism, I wimessed a surviving ancient folk culture in Mezőség, Kalotaszeg and Székelyföld, in die small Hungarian villages of Transylvania. I began to visually record diis folk lifestyle, die dance, die traditional musicians, the generosity of folks, and slowly developed a personal preservation of it all. My love affair widi Budapest was beginning, though I didn't realize it at the time. As I periodically returned from my Transylvanian travels, Budapest seemed a gray, dark, rainy, cold and very solemn place. It was a glimpse behind die Iron Curtain, despite die fact that it had recendy been freed from almost 50 years of communist totalitarian rule. The people didn't seem to yet realize what diey had accomplished with their drive to democracy
Today my unlikely objet d'amour has become part of me. I am in love widi Budapest, and she loves me back. We have known each other for eleven years and have been living together for seven. We will probably never break up. Though I came back in 1995 to continue to explore and record my passion - the traditional Hungarian folk culture in Transylvania -1 have lived all this time mosdy just off Andrassy ut, widi its grand old homes and turn-of-the-century facades.
I had never lived in a big city before. A child of the '60s, I blossomed out of die counter-culture folk music movement, a natural-living, chop-wood, carry-water type. Big cities to me were always places to visit, containers of culture, places to pass through, conduct business and leave - not places to live. This country vs. city tension has lived in me ever since my relocation, a stimulating contradiction that, like so many "relationship problems," is a blessing in disguise.
Vissza