Photo: Bojan Mustur
I grew up watching movies. I used to spend hours studying motion pictures, like in the title of the classic movie, completely Breathless. (fr.: À bout de souffle). I was infatuated by the movies of Italian neorealism, French New Wave and American Film Noir. I was almost the only visitor of The National Film Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I truly enjoyed my solitude there. I was left speechless by magic and miracles of Georges Méliès and Buster Keaton, the pensive smile of Charlie Chaplin, and the Thespian portraits of John Ford’s Wild West.
Photo: Bojan Mustur
In the years that were passing inexorably, I was inhabiting invisible the circus tents of Federico Fellini. And imagining I was a clown. I laughed at the sketches of the Marx brothers, Harold Lloyd and Jacques Tati. And though he was Mon Oncle.
Photo: Bojan Mustur
Although my greatest wish was to become a film director, photography became its charismatic replacement. It was much simpler. Smoother. It helped me recognize people’s emotions, without stealing them. It helped me show them to the world. Through the window, frame, like Marc Chagall’s painting Paris through the Window (fr.: Paris par la fenêtre). It helped me not to be just a pathetic paparazzi, like in La Dolce Vita movie. To make people laugh and affect their emotions. My mirror, hidden inside the camera.
Photo: Bojan Mustur
That’s why I think that portraits and human faces are the biggest treasure of the contemporary photography. Just like through the lenses of Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and so on. Not even to mention Milomir Kovačevic – Strašni, a photographer from Sarajevo. The beating heart, the love that’s always reborn. Like the sun in Doha, illuminating luxurious West Bay. And the passers-by.
Photo: Bojan Mustur
And somewhere, well hidden, Robert Doisneau is capturing the life of the city. Maybe it’s me?
