These are very important images for me. They were taken at the Primás Sziget (a tiny river Danube island by Esztergom) whilst I was doing my residency at Štúrovo (border town between Slovakia and Hungary).
It was a 3-month art residency from February to May 2023. and my first ever residency.
I loved the opportunity and felt really creative but at the same time the famous myth of the artist burning out because they give too much of themselves became reality. After 6 weeks of deep focus on my practice 24h a day I was on the verge of burning out. I did burn out once before and it was very scary. Very hard to bounce back. It took me 2 months of hard work to function properly again and 6 month for full recovery.
I’m lucky I’m quite a present person and realised this was about to happen again so I took a week off. I disconnected from the world, no electronic devices apart from using my tablet - with no wi-fi - for music. I read, read and read.
After a week, I started to feel better and to test my emotional state I went for a long walk with my digital camera and my manual focus 50mm lens. I went walking and photography was to happen if it happened.
I walked for 4 hours, appreciating this beautiful small island and trying to reach this Silo I heard was by the Danube shore.
The vegetation was incredible, the light coming through, the silence and peace… As I approached this group of tree, the light changed/moved and brought all of them to this 3D effect. I felt totally immersed in the forest.
I kept walling and eventually could see the silo nearby but couldn’t safely reach it due to the vegetation. I sat down and took the landscape in, wet my feet on the Danube water, had a sandwich and some juice… felt inspired and took two picture of the silo -
I took 4 pictures that day, two of the trees and two of the silo. You see one of each here.
I love them, they are one of my favourite images. They represent my strength to come back out of a near-miss burn-out, my creativity and intuition against all odds and me, finally coming to terms with photography as a creative outlet. It took me only 30 years to do so but it’s never too late to get where you want to reach.
I’m very pleased these two images are part of this exhibition and catalogue. Gábor Ruda - the curator - is a local artist and for him to have picked these images it means a lot to me. I feel I managed to touch somehow people that probably see this landscape on a daily basis.
Also, the other photographs are amazing so I feel humble to be part of such a bunch of talented photographers.
Primás-sziget - FOREST
