Dario is a local politician, aiming for the world and beyond. He came to the villages around me to see how life is after the earthquake of Zagreb. To see how an epicenter looks like. He came, he saw, he left. I caught him praying. Is there hope?

My 12th encounter is actually a sad one. The village opposite of me, the one I see every morning when waking up, is been heavily damaged by the earthquake. Two months after this, citizens of Zagreb and surroundings are still struggling with the consequences and the fact that they lost (part of) their house.

So is Maja. Just before the earthquake they paid the last payment of their loan for their house, and now they have nowhere to live. The government is not clear, and people are confused. So is Maja.

She called a local politician to come, to help, to support and I went there to she how things are. Meet Maja. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to make a portrait with much more hope and less pain.

As I work from home, I try to go our at least every second day. Just to stretch my legs, to walk around a bit. Camera is with me but only for portraits. The village is still damaged and it is a said view. No need to capture that over and over. So I am stalking my neighbors and unknown visitors. The first ones are used by now, the latter are rather shocked and not so cooperative.

Today I noticed that J. had the hat of his grandfather and he was happy to pose for me. I guess he is used to it as his mother is a photographer as well.

The image is slightly cropped (social distancing need to be taken into account while photographing), but the combo GFX50 + GF50 does a great job and I love it for a walk-around camera. Quality is insane and handling is as my old Mamiya.

Whereas normally I really adore black & white portraits, nowadays I like to see colour. Probably the lockdown is having impact on my mind as well. So, here is Vanessa, I photographed her a while ago and the session was in monochrome. Today, I played around with the originals and must admit I like the colour version as well.

Lightning was done with a big umbrella, left behind my shoulder, making the light very traditional but soft enough. Processing was left to the minimum and done in C1.

As the lockdown still is in place, I do not really have any portrait sessions. Today I played a bit around with a session which was meant to be black & white only, but then, these times scream for some colour. At least modest.

the original session can be found here.

Finally somebody new entered the village. Gypsies, collecting old stuff and the village has enough as we are still cleaning from the earthquake (more than a month ago!). At least I could practice asking strangers for a portrait. I expected to be rejected, but no, they accepted. So cool! Should have asked for their names though.

I remember, back in the film days, I was one day walking on the biggest flee-market in Zagreb, with my Mamiya 7, when I  took a portrait of two gypsy girls. Today, the whole experience reminded me of this. Love the feeling of the GFXr!

Though not a real ‘stills’, I really love this image. It is not a long exposure, but the mood is great and the loneliness of the boat really reflects the state of the world some weeks later. Social distancing on it’s utmost being a lonely sailor in the big sea.

It’s spring, but the evenings are still cold, or better said, fresh. The neighbor phoned, if they could get some potting ground. I always have some stock for the neighbors so it was fine by me. Of course, as I rarely meet someone, it was the opportunity for a picture.

And yes, in my village they wear Xmas sweaters with Eastern, so what, it’s cold :)