October 24, 2024

Backstage # 7 — What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ms. Mercedes: The website is ready.
Zoltan: Great! What do you think about it?
Ms. Mercedes: About “bagatellography.com”? It is great.
Zoltan: You don’t seem very enthusiastic.
Ms.Mercedes: If I’m honest, I would say: this is a marginal area of photography, that only a few people are interested in.
Zoltan: But some are. Isn’t that so? If only a handful of people care, does that make it worthless?
Ms. Mercedes: Who knows… Anyway, can we just stop for a moment and talk about your so-called “business model”? It is strange. Are you seriously quitting your job to take pictures that are of no importance to anyone else? And you want to be paid for it?
Zoltan: I’m just collecting donations.
Ms. Mercedes: This is what I’m talking about. There is no product or service you provide. I mean I see no scenario, where you could have a reasonable expectation of getting paid. And this “public domain” nonsense…
Zoltan: Don’t hold back, say it!
Ms. Mercedes: The fact that, what you’ve been working on for years is freely available to everyone, goes against the basic principles of capitalism. I don’t think it works.
Zoltan: But “I’m standing here and can’t do otherwise”…
Ms. Mercedes: Cute. A quote from Martin Luther King?
Zoltan: Nope, just Martin Luther.
Ms. Mercedes: But King was the king…

 

 

 

October 18, 2024

Backstage # 6 — The Hypop Font

Zoltan: I want that font.
Ms. Mercedes: Listen, I looked it up, Hypop font cannot be used in this WordPress environment. Sorry…
Zoltan: I want that font.
Ms. Mercedes: I understand, but the system doesn’t allow it. Would another one be just fine? There is a bunch of fonts that look like it, like… Barrow.
Zoltan: I want that font.
Ms. Mercedes: No way.
Zoltan: Almost no one uses the Hypop font. It was used in only one episode of Family Guy…
Ms. Mercedes: …in the legendary “High School English Episode” cast list. Aired November 20th, 2016.
Zoltan: Exactly!
Ms. Mercedes: Forget it.
Zoltan: You are so cruel.

September 26, 2024

Bagatellosophy # 11 – Is gray a color?

Yun-Yun: I find it interesting that you prefer black and white pictures. Don’t you feel that this deprives the recipient of the additional details that colors could provide?
Zoltan: I worked as a fashion photographer for a long time. Then I made reproductions for art galleries and museums. Their recurring criticism of my pictures was, that they were “yellow”. Back then, I didn’t understand what they meant at all. Later, when I finally made up my mind to get my driver’s license, the medical tests revealed that my color perception was not perfect, so I was not even allowed to drive.
Yun-Yun: I’m sorry.
Zoltan: I started taking black and white pictures, because I felt that the colors I saw were somehow false. The black and white way of seeing things is suitable for bagatellography as a means of seeing the essence.

September 11, 2024

Bagatellosophy # 10 – The bagatello hunt

Yun-Yun: I noticed that most pictures were taken in Hungary, including Budapest.
Zoltan: The explanation is simple. After graduation I stayed in Budapest.
Yun-Yun: Have you thought about travelling abroad to take bagatello photos?
Zoltan: Yes. This is the reason why I travelled to Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Germany. After a while it became apparent, that the pictures taken there, could have been taken in Hungary.
Yun-Yun: How so?
Zoltan: Bagatellography is not only a way of looking at things, but a method and a descriptive formula. For that reason, its object is not dependent on the place of creation. It is constant.
Yun-Yun: Was there no other reason?
Zoltan: I don’t remember any other reason… I was too drunk for that.

July 30, 2024

Backstage # 5 – Dust

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zoltan: I can’t believe it!
Ms. Mercedes: What’s wrong?
Zoltan: I just cleaned that damn Canon sensor for the tenth time, and the spots are still there.
Ms. Mercedes: Why don’t you use your old Lumix?
Zoltan: Do you think that’s a good idea? The Lumix’s sensor has ten megapixels, and I shot about a million pictures with it for the comic book guy. You know, Attila Futaki… It could break any moment, it’s more living history than a camera.
Ms. Mercedes: Is it working now?
Zoltan: Yes.
Ms. Mercedes: Well then?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 28, 2024

Bagatellosophy # 9 — Why public domain?

Yun-Yun: You expressed multiple times, that your works are in the public domain. Why?
Zoltan: I think that the concept of being an original work of art is becoming more difficult to interpret nowadays. Because in digital photography, the components of the original and the copy can be exactly the same. The light facts recorded by Bagatellography – the bagatellos themselves – are in the public domain. After downloading them, anyone can use or modify them as they wish.
Yun-Yun: What is the meaning of all this?
Zoltan: Bagatellography needs to function as a cultural catalyst, which facilitates the creation of new works.
Yun-Yun: Digital Anarcho-art?
Zoltan: Sure…may I use the term?
Yun-Yun: Yeah, go ahead.

 

 

June 9, 2024

Bagatellosophy # 8 — B-books

Yun-Yun: If you position yourself as a bagatellographer, why is there additional text?
Zoltan: What do you mean? You are not quite accurate as a human being anyway.
Yun-Yun: I take that as a compliment. Why do “Bagatellography Books” contain text? What is the need for it?
Zoltan: The bagatellos – I’m referring here to the individual pictures – carry their own stories. Stories that I experience while taking them. The texts are actually prints of the artistic impressions generated by the experiences.
Yun-Yun: Photoimpressionism?
Zoltan: Wow! That was profound, can I appropriate the term as my own?
Yun-Yun: Sure, be my guest.

April 2, 2024

Backstage # 4 – “Gearology”

 

Zoltan: So you recommend these boots.
Mr. Seller: Absolutely! These are the best on the market. You see, here is a piece of iron inside the toe of the boot. You could even drive a tank over it!
Zoltan: Abrams, or Leopard?
Mr. Seller: What?
Zoltan: Never mind. Is it waterproof?
Mr. Seller: Sir, this is a masterpiece… There is a good reason for its pricetag being what it is.
Zoltan: I’ll buy it.

 

March 19, 2024

Bagatellosophy #  7 — Pixel wars

Yun-Yun: What determines the kind of camera you use?
Zoltan: I use any camera that is available at the moment. For the bagatellographer, shooting and recording the composition is what matters most. The rest is circumstantial.
Yun-Yun: It confuses me that there are high-resolution color images, black and white images, Leica format images, square images, and 16:9 images. Why?
Zoltan: I work with what I can. You can drive a nail in with a hammer, the heel of your shoe or a piece of rock.
Yun-Yun: In other words, the act of taking a photograph is important, not the method.
Zoltan: Yup.

 

March 3, 2024

Bagatellosophy # 6 —  The great conclusion


Yun-Yun: None of the previous statements about Bagatellography are true. It is neither professional, nor is it amateur and it has nothing to do with art. Right?
Zoltan: You know Bagatellography is…
Yun-Yun: Bagatellography. I got it.

 

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