In an interview, American photographer Nan Goldin stated: “Some people believe that the photographer is almost always one of those who is the last to be invited to the party, but this is my party.” A photographer, especially when it comes to documentary photography and photojournalism, is always between an event, its participants, and the rest of the world. Photography always stands between the photographer and the observer, who will interpret and analyze it in various ways. The very nature of photography moves between realism and something constantly changing, elusive, and imaginary.
Third-year students of the Photography module at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, Sara Bogdanov, Izabela Milanović, and Miona Racić, capture different scenes in urban environments, both exteriors and interiors. Current social events and reactions, such as protests and gatherings in Miona Racić’s photographs, somehow visually confirm the first part of Nan Goldin’s statement about the photographer sometimes being more of a witness and an impartial observer. Moving between different slogans, symbols, and the faces of the participants, Miona Racić transmits them in a purely documentary manner. In contrast to hers, the photographs of Izabela Milanović and Sara Bogdanov show completely different situations and atmospheres. At the same time, their photographs are more intimate because, in some way, they are much more about themselves, their free time marked by concerts or club parties they attend with their friends. This is their world and their people. Therefore, their approach to the photographic medium and situations is entirely different. Black-and-white and color photographs, often slightly out of focus and shot with extended exposure, convey rhythm, atmosphere, and different human states. In Sara Bogdanov’s work, color perhaps takes precedence over the method of shooting. It separates lonely individuals from the crowd, silence from sound and rhythm. In the works of Izabela Milanović, even more in Sara Bogdanov’s, the private has become public, and photography is a note between one part of the inner world of the authors and the observer.
Jelena Matić