A Mirror in Macedonia

Neil Folberg

author Neil Folberg photography Neil Folberg

Drawn to Macedonia in 1971 by its vibrant folk culture, Neil Folberg received a fellowship from the University of California at Berkeley to spend five months photographing the land and people of this rugged, mountainous land, then part of Yugoslavia. Folberg’s task was complicated by the police & state security services. In his essay, Folberg writes about the work, it’s social and artistic context and of his conversations with the masters with whom he studied, photographers Ansel Adams and William Garnett. Looking back from a perspective of fifty years, Folberg writes, “Where are all those anonymous people that I met, each with a story? Where are they today? They are all here, in these images. But here is the surprise: looking back through these windows I find a mirror reflecting myself, a 21-year-old student from Berkeley. I watch myself as I set up a tripod and camera in a public square, where people either flow around me or become engaged, attracted or repelled by my camera. Secret agents follow me, but I don’t see them. I observe myself in the mirror of time.”

With an afterword by Professor Ilina Jakimovska, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Sts. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia.

English

Neil Folberg was born in San Francisco in 1950. He now lives in Israel, where he runs Vision Gallery in Jerusalem. Folberg’s many books include And I Shall Dwell Among Them and Celestial Nights (Aperture, New York). His photographs have been shown worldwide in museums and galleries and his prints are in major museum collections.

size 260 x 200 mm 104 pages hardcover design Lecturis appears in June NUR 653 ISBN 978-94-6226-402-1 € 35,00