Goran Basaric uses a vintage Soviet swing-lens camera to take his Cinemascope-style panoramic photographs which have been exhibited internationally. BCreative was brought in to see the bigger picture.
There is a sublime quiet that falls upon a scene like Goran Basaric’s “Ferry Heading Out“, a slow roll of beauty that moves through the frame as sturdy and gentle as the small passenger ferry that is put-putting its way west. In the distance rainclouds loom large over this last long stretch of Vancouver but no matter. Nothing is going to get in the way of wherever this determined vessel is going. Such an intrepid spirit marks many of the scenes in Basaric’s cinematic-style panoramic photographs included in the collection, “City Pastoral”.
But he didn’t start off with this frame of reference or state of mind which may be part of Basaric’s advantage in being able to see the way he does.
Born in the former Yugoslavia, Basaric came of age in Belgrade as the country began to fracture and fall apart. In the 1980s, the streets were stoked by protests and the mood of the city was dark. Through this tumult, Basaric took his degree in Cinematography at Belgrade’s prestigious Faculty of Dramatic Arts. The school was a bohemian beehive for a creative generation eager to break from the past.
In an early series of photographs, Basaric put his camera in the thick of his generation’s coffeehouse, or kaffena, culture. The photographs are shot in dirty blacks and ashtray greys and are lit like an interrogation room in a film-noir movie. In the gloom, cigarettes are waved about like weapons as the students talk brightly of their dreams. The mood of the pictures manages to match the mood in these rooms. Already Basaric was gaining hold of his camera and making his style be part of the story.
Mindful of the documentary photography tradition of the great Magnum photographers, Basaric took to the streets for inspiration. Bresson’s smart-eye strategy for the “decisive moment” lead him to pan and scan many of Belgrade’s crowded streets but little stood out. The light was dull or he felt too closed in by the past. It would take an old camera and a new city to let his talent break free.
All of Basaric’s panoramic photographs in this collection show the full stretch of vision he’s able to achieve with his Horizont camera. Dating to the Soviet Union in the 1960s, the Horizont is an all-metal mechanical swing-lens panoramic camera. It is similar to the Japanese Widelux camera. But the Horizont, being of Soviet vintage, is a little more capricious in its work habit. The pivoting lens moves with the faintly audible speed of a breath being exhaled. And you never know what will turn up in the frame by the time it’s done taking the shot. Basaric relies upon its unreliability.
He has used this camera to greatest effect in the wide open spaces of his adopted city of Vancouver which is nestled gently between mountains and water. The panoramic frame commands attention in the same manner as does a stage. Against the draping natural beauty of this setting, fickle actors set out in play. But this is theatre of the ordinary and everyday. Basaric has a sure touch for putting Canadians in their proper place. Just like it took the Swiss-born Robert Frank to make an American look like an American, it takes an expatriate Serbian? to let Canadians play by their own rules.
And what of this place he calls City Pastoral? The scenes may be poetic but they’re not soft; there is a lyrical rhythm to Basaric’s photographs that feels very solid and keenly observed. The term pastoral should be taken in stride. These are 21st Century urban Canadians going about their business not country gentlemen lolling about in a Constable painting. Leisure rarely looked less leisurely. And in the quick of this passing moment, Basaric captures the peaceable freedom possible in these public spaces. And there is a not a cigarette to be found among this very active lot. Basaric refers to the “extravagant normalcy” of these scenes and that idea hits the mark. He makes the commonplace appear compelling and gives stature to all these quotidian spaces.
Basaric’s collection has many charms. The formal bride coming up the long sweep of sandy beachstairs is a decidedly westcoast version of elegant. The shirtless boys riding the back of the BC Ferry, dumbstruck by sunshine and grandeur. The team of swimmers standing in freezing water stoically waiting for their accomplishment to be captured on film. Everyone rises a little above themselves to meet the challenge of these monumental spaces. And then slipping in among all the long shadows is Basaric himself – the lucky participant who by chance and determination put himself in the right place at the right time.
