Everyone should visit Rome once. Everyone who has the chance is astounded by the remains of thousands of years. Since in Rome almost every house, every street is a profound monument, a monument of time.

But visitors do not just stare, they take photographs, about a million a day, mostly at the same tired spots like the Colosseum, the Trevi-fountain, the Pantheon, Saint Peter's Cathedral. These pictures are usually not worth remembering since the original scenes are much more interesting. A few people, however, do a monument of time.mass-producing photographic commonplaces and if they compiled an album from their pictures it would surely be graced by an introduction from a director of a museum of photography. These images are not about the city they were taken in as much as they are about the photographer, and even more about photography itself. Such work can be appreciated with a clear conscience.
It is rare that a young man possesses his own style, a fully-realized form of expression. Turay does. No matter where he is, in Rome, in Budapest, anywhere, he takes photographs in Turay-style: well-chosen techniques, a large-format camera made to his specifications, consistently applied formal, compositional elements. Making photographs this way is time-consuming and very difficult with no margin for error. The photographer must experiment with his idea of what the picture will be before snapping the exposure. It takes plenty of time. Fortunately, he has the time, the new millennium has just started and he is not even thirty years old.

It also requires talent, a grain of sensitivity, curiosity. Time will determine the amount. It is risky and dangerous. The consistently built career, the insistence on his own style can easily turn creative genius into mannerism, self-repetition, finally boredom.

I can see only one way out. This talent, diligence, curiosity, sensitivity must be accompanied by eternal discontent. Discontent with anything, but mainly with himself. Only this can bring real success, only this can guarantee the worthy continuation of a well-begun career.
I keep my fingers crossed for him, not the lion.

 

                                                                                        Károly Kincses - Ephemeral images of the Eternal City - Kecskemét, Hungary, 2002.

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Károly Kincses is a museologist. He was a cofounder of the Hungarian Museum of Photography and the Hungarian House of Photographers. He was the Director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography between 1991 and 2006.