The term vintage in photography denotes a photography made at the time the picture was taken or up to 5 years later, which is generally accepted time limit, valued also for purely technical properties in connection with the making of a photograph.
Tihomir Pinter is now known primarily for his »ironwork photography«
and portraits of Slovenian artists, while his early works are
virtually unknown to a wider public. His contemporaries perhaps saw
them, because they were, except one at the present exhibition, at the
time of their creation awarded prizes and presented at photographic
competition exhibitions organised by the Photographic Association of
Yugoslavia.
This time they are for the first time exhibited
independently.
Vintage The term vintage in photography denotes a
photography made at the time the picture was taken or up to 5 years
later, which is generally accepted time limit. They are very
appreciated by collectors, as such photographs present artists'
original and earliest interpretation. Because they are made with
photographic materials that temporally coincide with the picture
taken, they are valued also for purely technical properties in
connection with the making of a photograph (e.g. the modern
photographic papers for making photographs with wet process differ
from the old ones in silver halides content, photographs made with the
materials available today are not exactly the same as those made 50
years ago).
Besides the photographer's original interpretation, they
also provide a proof of quality of photograph-making, as slovenly made
photographs do not stand the test of time – they turn yellow, fade
etc. Pinter, who always makes his own photographs, is as a chemist
well aware of the chemical properties of the material he uses and the
consequences of their inconsistent use. The exhibited photographs are
from 4 to 5 decades old, yet remain unaffected by time, except for
their inevitable patina – the black is softened. The early works An
insight into the work of a young artist who tests and follows the
beaten track before he beats his own is undoubtedly interesting:
insecurities, searches and joyful discoveries of fragments from which
in the following years »Pinter« will be made.
In 1961, five years
after he took up photography, he for the first time exhibited some of
his photographs. The oldest photograph at the exhibition also dates
back to 1961, the selection then presents photographs from the first
15 years of his regular participation at exhibitions organised by
photo clubs.
Tihomir Pinter was born into a house of photography –
his father and later also his brother were photographers, while he
himself as a child whiled away the time by watching father's
photographs on glass. No wonder he too wanted a camera, he got one
when he was 18. From then on he takes photos. He is a self-taught
photographer who has from his early teens regularly visited
exhibitions of visual art and actively contemplates what he has seen.
When he was attending secondary school in Ljubljana, he was enraptured
with the ironwork photography of Slavko Smolej. He studied photography
also as an active member of the following photo clubs: Sarajevo
(1958-60), Zagreb (1960-65), Smederevo (1965-68), Belgrade (1968-70)
and Ljubljana (from 1970 he is a member of Fotogrupa ŠOLT). The
photographers of the pre-war generations, even the greatest
world-names, had no education in photography, as it did not exist back
then.
In the period after the Second World War, organised
photographic activities in Slovenia and the former Yugoslavia were
conducted primarily in photo clubs. The latter were very active in the
field of education (presenting and analysing the work of their
members, providing access to photographic literature – books,
magazines with topical issues in the field of photography), and in the
field of organising photographic competitions and exhibitions, they
also offered a possibility to obtain titles within the Photographic
Association of Yugoslavia.
Thus there was no institutional formal
education within the school system, yet the Photographic Association
of Yugoslavia bestowed the title Master of Photography to a
photographer who was selected in competitions for exhibitions
organised by them and consequently exhibited at least fifty works. The
exhibited works had to belong to different genres and the author had
to display the command of the medium – both of which is characteristic
for Pinter's early works.
Obtaining the title Master was then the only
school, and the most successful photo amateurs become successful
professionals (e.g. Tone Stojko, Joco Žnidaršič, Janez Pukšič, Dragan
Arrigler, Božidar Dolenc, Miško Kranjec and many others). Some
starting points of Pinter's photography He does not like flash and
does not use it, he makes use of the available light. When he creates
images, he places most importance on the composition.
He does not
strictly follow the principles of »straight photography«, which
emphasises the absence of manipulation, framing with a camera (black
rim), and which in the 70's influenced the modernist aesthetics of
photography. It allows framing of an image by a cut out of an original
shot, manipulations in a darkroom is reduced to minimum. He makes his
own photographs. To him, the work in a darkroom is both very important
and creative. A mere shot is not a photography which presents the
author's vision in its entirety. What counts is the final image on a
photographic paper with selected tint values.
Motif world Besides
»ironwork photography«, Pinter was in his early period of
photographing also occupied with street photography, photographers in
Yugoslavia then preferred the term »life photography«. The latter
deals with the life outside studios, i.e. mankind, society. It
contains elements of spontaneity, it is devoid of the predictable
manipulative nature of studio photography. Some »street« photographers
are of the opinion that a photograph should be genuine, not staged,
and taken without a prior consent of the person photographed. If
persons are allowed to enter and leave the scene as they please, a
shot can be taken everywhere.
The development of »street photography«
is closely connected with the emergence of small, portable and fast
enough cameras in the beginning of the 20th century, while it was
blooming in the early 70's of the 20th century. Pinter's approach to
photography was very systematic from the beginning, he always prepared
an essay on a selected theme, e.g. everyday life on the street, the
homeless, people at work, the saltpan of Sečovlje, hop plantations in
the Savinja valley, a visit to a Romani settlement, portraits of
ironworkers in various ironworks across Yugoslavia, details of objects
in ironworks ... The variety of motifs in his early period was
conditioned also by acquiring the only available degree, the title
Master of Photography. In order to get it, he had to prove that he has
a command of the medium, that he masters different genres and the
making of a photograph. »I photographed everything«, he says. Some
photographic themes also depended on the current technological
development, e.g. on accessibility of telephoto lenses, which was not
generally accessible before the 70's, on the testing of graphic film –
low sensitivity, contrast raster film. Regardless of the selected
motif, the foreground of his images constantly display two main
characteristics, two main personal interests, the essence of his
photographic view.
As a photographer, Pinter likes to monitor people
at work. He began with ironwork photography and by accident took up
portraying painters in their studios. When photographing, he did not
discriminate, photographing painters was to him the same as
photographing workers in ironworks, only the light in ironworks was
much more unpredictable and evasive. Among his early works are also
many street photographs. Portraits in which the portrayed person
flirts with the photographer and directs his look to the lenses are in
his early period rather an exception and not a rule. He prefers to
take a shot when people are not aware of his presence.
Pinter thus
prevents the gaze of portrayed persons from taking the central role,
the protagonist blends with another language, the one which is for
Pinter of the greatest importance. The language of elements of arts –
creating composition with shapes, relations between light and shadows,
rhythm, spatial arrangements, proportions, texture ... – is for him a
sine qua non. When motifs are inherently narrative, documentary (a
homeless man in the street, costermongers ...), visual means of
expression dominate the image to such extent that they interpret
reality. In the photograph of a costermonger counting money the
baskets create rhythm, the protagonist is in golden ratio; the
photograph of a man weaving baskets is dominated by shape, lines,
rhythm; in the photograph of a housing project the story is told by
the rhythm, the proportions between the buildings and the man,
graphicness.
In the photographs of rather boring iron semi-products
and objects isolated from their environment Pinter's use of elements
of art provides these objects with a story, adds a character to
impersonal semimanufactures (hop poles become a completely geometrised
abstract image, a field of blossoming buckwheat becomes fields of
proportions between tint values, cold metal is enlivened, it becomes
organic etc.). The protagonists in Pinter's images, living and
inanimate, always follow the rules of composition, the latter creates
a story by relations between the selected photographed elements. Henri
Cartier-Bresson was of a similar opinion, he maintained that
photography was »recognising the order«, when asked what makes a good
composition, he answered: »Geometry«. Pinter, too, says that
composition is the most important part of photography.
According to
Szarkowski, photography is a system of visual editing1. Pinter's
visual editing has been since the very beginning striving toward the
geometry of solitude2. He knows how to find solitary quiet details in
noisy ironworks, when he portrays people at work,3 he prefers to
remain an unseen, solitary observer. In his photographs he »embodies
his conceptions about a photographic image as a revelation of hidden
(aesthetic) values.«4 The exhibition Vintage is only one of the
exhibitions in 2013 on the occasion of the author's 75th birthday.
Opening Nov 5th at 7 p.m.; at 6 p.m the author will give a guided tour to the exhibition
Galerija Fotografija
Mestni trg 11/I, Ljubljana Slovenia
Hours: tue-fri 12-19 sat 10-14
Free entry