"It's weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime,
trying to capture moments that added together,
don't even amount to a couple of hours." ~James Lalropui Keivom



During the summer of 2008, I spent five weeks in the city of Budapest, Hungary.
I participated in the AIR/HMC Artist Residencies, organized by Hungarian
artist Beata Szechy. The idea behind these residencies included
"understanding of world cultures" and gives participating artists an opportunity
to live in Budapest. We created new artwork and exhibited it in galleries
in Budapest. I enjoyed the residency with artists from
Greece, England and the United States.

Each day I explored the maze of streets in this fascinating city. Divided by the
Danube River the city is really two cities unified in 1873; Buda, on the west bank,
is filled with neighborhoods divided by hills. Pest, on the east bank, is a flat spread out city.
The Golden Age of Budapest ended with the start of WWI and luckily many wonderful
ornate buildings survived both World Wars I & II. Bullet and shrapnel scars can be seen on
many buildings and graveyards. Budapest is a beautiful old city with a complex history.
Very rich artistically and architecturally but scarred by Nazi and Communist occupations.

Budapest has a population of almost two million people and it swells to three million
when you include the surrounding areas. I stayed in a busy part of Pest in a modest hotel
over looking a park just off the fashionable Andrassy Avenue. Each day I used mass
transit and walked miles with my backpack of camera gear in search of interesting images.

Darkroom Prints