Conquering Musala 2012

It is not a first time that I am climbing Musala. But it is a first to take the path from Belmeken dam - a 25 km trek on a mostly even terrain with the last 5 km or so with ups and downs on the rocky ground. The bones were crackling, the ground was soft, the sun was rough, the wind was deceitful. You smile together with everyone around, marvelling at the way the water makes its way through the ground, the way the pine trees feed you their green pine cones without protest. You are standing on that edge and hoping that you don't slip; and yet, you come closer to have your breath taken away by the view. You walk into the clouds as if they are a fluffy ball of pink candy cotton. And it melts under your feet just like the real cotton.

July Vacation Day 3 – of Nature

Day 3 – A cheerful morning glow – the rain from last night had prepared the grass for our steps, the morning sun had cleared the air from the fog, the sun was waiting to burn even more of my face and shoulder skin. And the walk started from a ski resort. The type that is like a monolith with windows attached to a ski-line and that makes (they say) a great place to be in Winter. why did it feel as if we were entering an abandoned post-apocalyptic city? Why is that the only thing I could hear was Contrapunctus IX (a 4, alla Duodecima) as performed by Glenn Gould on the organ? Nothing of laughter, nothing of joy, nothing of energy. The sun was burning, the ground was grey, the buildings were dilapidating.

Next to those buildings that were once built and were once full of people (communist times?) new buildings were being constructed. Or construction had started before a plan went terribly wrong at the iron rods and cold concrete blocks were left unattended, abandoned behind the high fences warning off animals and mountaineers aline with their cold rust. Subtly informing you not to dip your toes in the lake right behind, let alone drink from it. Abandoned restaurant huts suggest that there is nothing to see here in the summer. Without the snow this place is dead. The hill specially designed for skiing (i.e. trees gotten rid of) felt like a torture – artificial, naked, as if the skin of the mountain has been ripped apart and the wound left uncovered.

We reach the top of the hill – the TV tower where a swarm of tourists (who had used the lift and who couldn’t care less about the packaging of sweets and chips they were spreading around) were taking picture with the view – artificial, as if they’ve made it – they’ve moved away from the car and away from the daily routine specially to discover its magnificence. Nature is taking her tole – it engulfs that which belongs to Her – the entrance of the tower also looked abandoned with grass trying to overtake the steel – which one is going to win?

And just 15 minutes away was the edge of the cliff – the same ridge from which Orpheus had sung his song for his beloved Eurydice. And when you stand on that ridge, you feel so minuscule, vulnerable, and yet omnipresent. The wind blows it takes off your atoms and molecules and spreads them across the valley. We spent 20 minutes there – none of the other tourists felt attachment for more than a fleeting moment of that picture they felt they needed to take to justify their presence. Nature has no sanctity. Nature is (?) no sanctity.

We come we build and we don’t finish. And you know. Nature will finish it for us. Not according to our design but to Hers. Because no matter how smart we are and how much backward engineering of nature we are capable of doing, nature is still the engineer and we shall always be observing her past and not her future.

Unless, we let in our instincts guide us. A horse hiding in the shade waving his tail at the wasps. Staying there unchained, without horseshoes, without a hotstamp, without a name, without identity. Apart from the one that Nature bestowed on him. And he came, sniffed us, cuddled with us, gave us his blessing and told us that all will be well. Nature has Her ways – we’ve been there before and we’ll be there again. If we don’t finish something, Nature will finish it for us – according to Her plan. And we are part of it. Somehow. I am sure. I am hopeful.

Street Photography in Bulgaria

Many years ago (many by the standards of someone whose passport says 1985), I would come back to Bulgaria and would immediately put my shield (immediately=at the airport BEFORE the flight). I needed that shield for my own sanity – it is a culture shock – not that I wanted to keep my distance or that I felt ashamed of being Bulgarian. It had to do with change – in the same way as air pressure change leads to a headache, I had a headache experience when I looked at the faces of those Bulgarian flying back to Sofia – I used to play this game in my mind trying to guess if the person is Bulgarian or a foreigner going to Bulgaria just by looking at their facial expression. Statistically, I would have in most cases won had I bet on him/her being Bulgarian but it wasn’t also difficult to differentiate them simply because the neutral expression isn’t neutral – it is tense, worried, full of contempt even.

Over the years, and especially since picking up street photography, I have come to rely on the camera as the shield which has opened my understanding for such looks. And it is not that this is a reflection of the soul – no. Just like my camera, such a facial expression is a shield and you can see it drop when the person talks on the phone with a loved one, or when the boy feeds the birds, or when they hand together chatting about girly things, or when in the grey reality of the day he walks with a flower in hand, or when their orange hair (which is rare on one person in the streets let alone two people next to each other) flows in the low afternoon sun.

All shot from the hip (and as such they are “deliberate accidents”) at f8 or f11 (Summicron C40/f2) pre-set based on the distance indicators on the lens barrel.