For those who know history well it sounds like repetition, for all others it is news that even back in 1840 they tried to turn the camera around, then put the pictures together so that this way they could get panoramic photographs. After further experiments it was Edweard Muybridge who started to sell such panoramic photographs which showed a 2 meters wide landscape of San Francisco made of 11 glass negatives, put next to each other. Since then there have been countless solutions worked out with which it is possible to make panoramic photographs with 120, 180 and 360 degrees as well.
Up to just a few years, it took invention, technical knowledge and hard work to create such a machine, nowadays it is more a question of money. Luckily, the most perfect panoramic machine is available, just like the supplementary lens, which could be put on traditional machines, the optics which takes pictures in 360 degrees, the camera that turn around on its axle and furthermore, an intelligent software which can correct the optical maladjustment that happens naturally and which then lays it down in a perfect but somehow sterile circular panorama. Too perfect. That’s the reason why it is of tantamount importance to strive for the freedom of the creating mind, so that the work should be done not by machines but by the naked eye, by speculation and the objects that are created by the artist themselves. On this latter theme there were a few wonderful solutions exhibited by those photographers who took part in the creation of the material shown on the Esztergom biennial. The Hungarian Museum of Photography also contributes something to this. All those who understand and those who would like to know more about today’s photography are required to look into the distance, they must see panoramically. There are answers to today’s questions, sometimes a 100 or 150 years ago in the history of photography and possibly hundreds of years ago on the field of Fine Arts. Not to discover but to learn – this could be the new slogan.
In the spirit of this understanding, the Hungarian Museum of Photography contributes from its own collection to the selected material from the Esztergom biennial.