Zagreb as is
Gaia is my two year-old granddaughter. This year, 2025, she will complete her third year. And I’ll (maybe) become seventy. It will also mark precisely fifty years since my first amateur exhibition (Pag, 1975).
At the beginning of last year I launched the project of photographing Zagreb. While doing so, I realized that these photographs would also show what kind of Zagreb, I am – and all of us are – leaving to Gaia and all of the other granddaughters and grandsons. So the title/dedication “Gaia…and Zagreb” seemed only obvious. To Gaia and all of the other children who will grow up in this city.
I was urged to photograph Zagreb by my son Bartol, an art historian, who is a bit fed up with my many square photographs (for the entire duration of my analogue photography, and later, I have always adored that Hasselblad square, 6 × 6 cm, format). So I said to myself, “all right, I’ll do something in a different version.” The first thing that came to mind is a box full of roll film (120 format) which I have stored in the refrigerator for years and which have long since passed their recommended use date. Despite potential changes in the film’s emulsion, I decided to use up my entire supply.
At the same time, I decided that the theme of the exhibition (and the future book) will be: Zagreb. In part because I had never actually photographed my city just for myself. To be sure, my abundant archive of Zagreb consists of a multitude of motifs and special-purpose units, while there are remarkably fewer incidentally snapped scenes. I am not (any more?) the type of photographer who walks around and snaps pictures while strolling. I have always photographed with intensity, on assignment.
The other decision was to use a camera (Cambo Wide) with the corresponding lens (Schneider Super-Angulon XL 5,6/58 mm which covers the 9 × 12 cm format), and given that I (still) love the square, the ultimate choice on which format to employ came naturally. Instead of a single square, I will take photographs on a Chinese 6 × 12 cm cassette, purchased long ago and never used since. So two squares! Photography like this is slow and complicated. Today it is quite literally retro, pure and simple. The photographer, for example, covers his head with a dark piece of fabric to prevent the penetration of daylight when setting up a shot on the focusing screen. The use of a tripod is mandatory, so you have to carry a bag with the camera and tripod everywhere, all of which makes the entire process time-consuming and difficult.
I began taking photographs on New Year’s Day, 2024. I decided to do the photography during that year (1 January – 31 December 2024). I began in the vicinity of my present-day studio (Laginjina street) and flat (Hebrangova street), and slowly moved beyond, on foot, with bags slung over my shoulders. My method for taking photographs crystallized immediately. I would capture Zagreb as is. I would not embellish it, but nor would I intentionally make it seem uglier by highlighting unsavoury details. I would not pick up a discarded piece of paper in the forefront of a shot, which is something I otherwise did do for the entirety of my career as a photographer. Any happenstance (a passerby, a tramcar…) would be welcome. I wanted – Zagreb as is, right at the moment when I snapped a photo, with a passing tramcar, automobile, pedestrian, a Bolt or Wolt delivery cyclist…
Taking photographs in the neighbourhood in which I have lived since birth (Tomašićeva street) spurred me to concentrate on other childhood associations as well. Memories began to well up and I felt the need to write them down and subsequently add brief texts to my photographs. Comparisons between the same motifs in childhood and the present constantly imposed themselves, and sometimes one variant and sometimes the other seemed better. Initially I only took horizontal shots, and then I realized that certain motifs simply demanded verticality. Slightly unusual when so extended, but all the more intriguing. This is not a format in which you simply snap as many photos as possible; rather each shot is carefully chosen. And then only a single photograph is taken.
The absence of people in many photographs is a logical way of taking photographs and selecting motifs, while long and multiple exposures of the same shot leave traces of ghost people on photographs. Everything proceeded well, despite some minor technical problems, but near the end of the year, the cassette became disobedient. The film did not wind properly and several completed rolls were ruined. Some even had to be taken again. Fortunately, the year’s end was already nearing.
Zagreb is not portrayed as though photographed by commission, I did not create postcards, nor did I accord equal attention to every single section of the city. The idea was to find lesser known motifs or better known topics from different angles, ranging from wide shots to details. This was my own choice, I have no need to explain anything to anyone, nor make compromises in my selection of themes. I love projects like this!
I had thought long and hard about the exhibition I could stage next year, in 2025. In this period after the earthquake, when most exhibition halls are closed due to renovations, the selection of a display space was no simple task. Photographing Zagreb also necessarily encompassed the theme of post-earthquake reconstruction. Some buildings were shot during their reconstruction, framed by scaffolding with protective sheets (the maternity hospital in Petrova, the Arts Pavilion…). During these tours, these numerous typical surfaces were etched into my memory. Simply put, the post-earthquake reality convinced me that there is, in fact, no exhibition space.
This served as a genuine impetus for me to devise a different way to display my photographs. And it came to me! The exhibition would be held on the surfaces of the covered scaffolds in the city! An exhibition suited to today’s moment in the city, available to the broadest (democratic!) swath of visitors, without the limitations of opening hours, in a suitable large format. So, instead of fretting about the most appropriate available spaces in museums and galleries in Zagreb, I had to choose available buildings, verify their construction schedules…
At that moment everything seemed simple and easy. I was, as usual, overly enthusiastic and naive.
…
Let’s forget about the problems. The exhibition is here, and so is the associated web site. This is it, my Zagreb, both lovely and sorrowful, my photographic testament to my granddaughter.
Damir Fabijanić
More about the photographer at www.fabijanic.com
