The passengers

βalkan Urban League w/o Borders

The Bulb Collective has been founded in January 2015 by Michail after an Open Day held in Bucharest. Since 2015 the collective has widen its geographical scope and it presently consists of photographers from 6 countries in the Balkans.

The collective consists of photographers active in urban (and rural) photography with an expressive shift to include highly aesthetic and poetic images in their assignments.

They share the same vision but not the same perspective which gives the necessary "polyphony" in their extremely ambitious endeavour to cover all the aspects of the Balkan neorealism.

Their visual signatures aspire to create iconic images and to be the best in metamorphosing and interpreting all aspects of life in this highly contradictory and fascinating part of the world.

9/8/2017

The passengers

What is so appealing about people travelling, commuting or even waiting for a trip that never comes?

Are they really human llike us? Or are they mythological creatures, Κύκλωπες and Λαιστρυγόνες?

In the photographer's eye the passengers are not simply changing places, they are tresspassing the limits of their lives. And there, under bridges, in the sea, behind windows they are alone, they are left alone, they are what always wanted to be. Outsiders, strangers, aliens, but favorites, loved and popular at the same time.

Truth is, our alien life in an alien world can be much more fulfilling and mutely passionate than the daily conundrum trying to figure out "what these Ithakas mean."

"Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you." Ithaka by C. P. Cavafy, 1863-1933　

Photographs by: Gina Maragoudaki