Instragram : www.instagram.com/blahbamm
E-Mail: blahbamm@gmail.com
Copyright © Lyubomir Ignatov Photography. All Rights Reserved.
WINNER FORBES BULGARIA 30 UNDER 30 IN ARTS.
My First Zine became part of Martin Parr photography books collection in Tate Museum.
Statement:
My name is Lyubomir Ignatov and I’m a Sociology graduate, in my early 30’s, living in Sofia, Bulgaria. I was raised in a 1000 year old city called Veliko Tarnovo (the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire – 12-14th Century). Veliko Tarnovo is a city with general amazing history, but more specifically to me it is a city with tradition in the world of arts. As I grew up here, I witnessed how the best minds were pushed to sickness – some even to the edge of suicide. However, it was also here that I witnessed how my father, an artist, had to find other ways to feed his family. Yet, a lack of morals, and an abundance of greed ruled the country and they still do. Poverty destroyed the sanity and culture of my country. Drugs was ruining my friends. All this occurred whilst Mafia politicians lived in ‘heaven’ where no laws applied to them. I believe apathy killed the Bulgarian society. Whilst my country transitioned from socialism to a fake ‘democracy’ in the early 90’s,my best friends introduced me to snowboarding and skateboarding; punk rock, hardcore and hip hop. With no food on the table and sadness engrained in everyone’s faces – skateboarding, snowboarding, rap and punk saved the sanity of me and my homies. Still I truly open my eyes in Washington DC, 24th and Benning Road NE, before couple of years. I am white trash beautiful.
I always wanted to paint as my father had, but I didn’t get his talent, so instead I got a film camera. Film is romance…one day I probably wont be able to find any film to shoot on, and then I will stop photographing.
However, we must remember that art will always be a small part of the bigger picture. East Europe is like a love-hate relationship, we saw the worst of life, but that made us the people we are today. We are rebels now and our art is a way to speak our mind in the brightest and darkest days.”
Statement by my friend:
“A guy with a camera with a view to classic old-school sensibilities, filtered through the eyes of skateboarding and punk rock, an urban dwelling surveyor of the human conditions and it’s misanthropic glory” – some nice words from my friend Jamie MC Donald.