Boris Missirkov

Professional experience:
Since 1998
Creation and management of Agitprop Studio
Photographers/correspondents of COLORS magazine, Italy
Since 1995
Co-founders and members of the Bulgarian Photographic Association
Creation and management of the Photographic Workshop of BPA, a centre for education and research in photography and media arts
2002- 2005
Photographers for Edno magazine, Bulgaria
Curators of the K.E.V.A. photographic pages for Compass weekly guide
Lecturers at the New Bulgarian University – joint course of the Photography and Philosophy Depts.
Photographic workshops given at different venues in Eastern Europe
Creation and presentation of the collection of contemporary Bulgarian photography at Houston FotoFest 2002
2001-2002
Seeing The Light event, International Folio Weekend for image makers, Birmingham, UK, reviewers
P-people - photographic workshop given at Poprad Summer Photo School, Slovakia
Publications in magazines for photography and contemporary art - Photo & Video (Russia), European Photography (Germany), Imago (Slovakia), Camera Austria, Fotograf (Czech Republic), Crudelia (Italy) etc.
1998-2002
Presentations/ Lectures at Summer Photo School, Poprad, Slovakia;
Production and direction of Photomaton - a monthly TV review on photography and video art for Channel 1 of the Bulgarian National Television;
Management of the K.E.V.A. Gallery, Sofia (with Martichka Bozhilova
1995-1997
Organization of the Bulgarian presentation in the Collective Eye international photo exhibition.

Selected solo exhibitions
2007
On the Tracks of the Bright Future, Sofia City Gallery
2005
VIU Life, Venice International University, Isola di San Servolo - Venice
2004
Fluctuated images - Projektionen, fluc + fluc_Mensa, Vienna, Austria
Photo Works, Etage Galerie, Erste Bank, Vienna, Austria
Off Season, ATA gallery / Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia, Bulgaria
2003
Portraits, Prague House of Photography, Czech Republic, curated by Eva Hodek;
2002
43˚32’ N / 28˚36’ E, Beyond the alleY In the attiC art space, Sofia, Bulgaria;
The Bulgarian Connection, 101 Gallery, Houston, TX, curated by Wendy Wattriss and Fred Baldwin
2001
ID 2000, Dom Fotografie, Poprad, Slovakia, curated by Lucia Benicka;
2000
ID 2000, ABC Bogen building, Hamburg, Germany; ID 2000, Month of Photography, Bratislava, Slovakia

Ivo Hadjimishev, photographer

The name of Ivo Hajimishev is known not only to his professional fellow-photographers, publishers and the mass media. His works have been shown in a number of exhibitions at home and abroad. Hisphotos always stand apart with the special viewpoint of the author and his specific sense for visual composition. A due recognition for his talent has come with his being admitted member of the Royal British Photography Society.
“I took up photography in 1966-67,” Hajimishev says. I was 16 or 17 and like all boys, was interested in many different things. Photography was the one I found fastest realization in, perhaps because it is a very concrete matter. When a photo is good, you feel it right away. Interestingly, because I didn’t feel like investing time and patience at that time, I somehow grabbed the first thing that crossed my road and it lead me to unquestionable good results.”
At 16 Ivo Hajimishev had the photos he shot published on the front page of the then popular “Pogled” weekly. That success defined his road and he has been following it for 35 years now. Whatever his photos, of remote villages, actors, works of art, portraits and what not, Ivo Hajimishev is always striving to discover something different, something of his own. The things he really values most as an artist appear in black and white. Why is it so?
“We should start with the sad truth that for a very long time in Bulgaria we have lacked a serious approach to photography. That has its reasons. Looking back to the times before me, the period from 1944 to the 1960s, I realized that Bulgarian photography at that time was in the hands of two types of people, the ones who could do nothing else and the others, top intellectuals, who had started expressing themselves through photography.”
The second type of photographers were his teachers actually. They have taught him to view it seriously, like an artist, yet without taking himself too seriously. “This is the perfect occupation for me because of the way it allows me to come in touch with people,” Ivo Hajimishev explains. Again looking back at the history of photography, he saw that those Bulgarian artists have been up to highest world standards at their time. Black and white photography has remained for Hajimishev a truly artistic and concise means of expression. There you can draw attention to the simplest things, which are actually not that simple at all. This is classic and he deeply believes in it. Besides, photography has for a long time now become his way of life.
“For me photography is part of things, my things. I love reading, listening to music. I love traveling and I love taking pictures. I like taking pictures of a very wide range of people. This is my former studio and that is the gray wall against which I have been taking pictures for some 25 years now. There I have photographed all kinds of people – from Sotir-the Gipsy to a large number of politicians in the last 15 years. I have taken portraits there of several Presidents and several Prime Ministers. This is the gray wall. Between that wall and the camera, every one stands like an ordinary human being.”
His wish to communicate and be among the people is the driving force in Ivo Hajimishev’s profession. That is why people are the major subject of his photos. He takes great pleasure in talking to all sorts of ordinary people, the kind we usually call “the salt of the earth”.
Written by: A. Melamed
English version: I. Letnikova.