Lens-Artists PC: Postcards

This – postcards – is what my photos most look like and I’m neither ashamed nor embarrassed by it.

A while ago I looked through all the episodes of a certain photography challenge with young candidates dropping out one per episode, with colourful jury presided by Mr. Benetton himself, Oliviero Toscani (I see now that last year Benetton fired him after decades of collaboration), and diverse shooting locations, conditions and models.

One of the first things the candidates were told were “do not just click” and “do not take postcard snaps”. Guilty on both counts.

I thought back and knew what decided my artistic vision, embodied by a postcard: it formed while I was playing with grandma’s postcards in Maribor, Slovenia’s second largest city where my father is from.

Photo: Father

I was mesmerised. An image, words and love, all in one package, wow.

I loved sorting them into piles: those with one photo on and those with several (I rarely liked those), horizontal or vertical, those from abroad and those from Yugoslavia (my country at the time), those with one post stamp and those with several, or according to the addressee: grandma, grandpa, father, uncle, family Maksimovič.

Then I grew up and started to go places. I always loved choosing which postcards to buy, sometimes making my own, writing them over a cup of coffee and orange juice, sending them and finding new ones sent by friends in my post box upon return – oh, what a thrill.

They were the origin of comments that we leave to each other on our blogs, and if we are really lucky a hand-made postcard comes from New York in the flesh.

That’s why I’m not sorry that my photos look like postcards. They can still be sent and received with love.

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  Maribor and river Drava from grandma’s window.

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  Capital Ljubljana from the Castle hill with Kamnik-Savinja Alps in the back.

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  Kranjska Gora last August under the Julian Alps. As if I’d asked this (unknown) family nicely to come strolling by.

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  Izola ten days ago from a gas station.

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  One of Piran’s narrow alleys.

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  What a postcard from my Tuscany hood would show: “Beloved space”, Lake Burano and happy kids.

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What I did take away from watching that photo challenge was a most valuable lesson: Do not ever let anybody tell you which your best photos are. If you don’t know, they aren’t going to tell you. Everyone would choose a different one anyway.

As for yesterday’s basketball game SLO : ESP… ask Ana, this week’s guest host of the Lens-Artists photo challenge. She is Spanish. 😉 See, we had to win or we’d face the USA before the Olympic finals.

For Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, guest-hosted by Ana at Anvica’s Gallery: Postcards

This day in my blogging history

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  2017: August 2016 in 20 images for my Calendar

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  2019: A rare sunrise for Friendly Friday