Roma boy from an encampment in Belgrade, Serbia 2009

I have been home for over a week.  My trip back to the Balkans seemed quick.  I was there for a month-and-a-half but it felt like two weeks.  I was able to improve some great friendships and build some new ones, especially in Austria, where I connected with some musicians and graphic artists.

I used up 14 rolls of b/w film and am now in the developing process in a darkroom across the river.  I am there this morning and most of the day.  We shall see.  I have been slowly looking through the digital stuff.  Although I have combed through the Roma images, I still have the Breast Cancer shoot to address as well as my “tourist” images, mostly train stations, bus stations and transport of different varieties.

I am also writing my thesis on possible unification in the Balkan Peninsula.  Laugh if you will, but I think there could be a solution.  I also hope to be able to do a shoot next week with a professional model for some figure studies before I head to Woodstock for the weekend workshop on the same subject.  I have the images in my head that I want, I just need to make them happen.  I think I am using a male model, so I am going for a sense of heroism, almost like propaganda images from the Cold War, but I will also look for the vulnerability of the human spirit as well.

Here ‘s a small b/w image of a Roma boy from Belgrade.

John D.C. Masters

A Face in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina June 2008

“In 1998 I read “Balkan Ghosts” by Robert Kaplan and it turned a switch on inside of me.  It suddenly seemed as if I was always going to places everyone else had gone, so I chose a less traveled path. After reading that book, I went to Bulgaria for a month. I have not returned to Bulgaria since, but I hope to this spring.  I have, however, been a frequent traveler to the Former Yugoslavia, i.e Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Serbia.   I have included Greece in my Balkan excursions.  I see this area as the historical and emotional crossroads of the world, full of hope, promise, pain, and blood.  I have fallen in love with the Balkans.  There is no other place like it.”