Vladimir Leaves T(h)races

Vladimir Vassilev describes himself as a documentary photographer. Last year he took part in the Plovdiv exhibition International Photographic Meetings for the second time, but apart from that, he has not shown his work in Bulgaria. Still, his homeland is central to his latest major project T(h)races. In this series, Vladimir makes a survey of the country that he left, or that drove him away (he is still trying to decide which one). Born in Stara Zagora, he briefly attended courses in photography, in 1996 he entered VIAS and studied there for three and a half years, but abruptly abandoned everything and became an illegal immigrant in France in 2001. Since 2007, he has been living there legally, and over the course of ten years he has been coming back to Bulgaria regularly to take pictures. This distance is what makes Bulgarian reality so interesting to him, it allows him to capture Bulgaria in a very real, raw, captivating and honest way. His photos serve as an window into the quotidian life and reality of people and places that we have both always known – and never known at all.

What does the long-range view add to the images from your latest project T(h)races?

Distance is a very important animating factor. If I lived in Bulgaria, I would not photograph it. Not in this way. This is a very important point.

Documentary shooting takes time. The Bulgarian project in particular has taken ten years. When I emigrated to France, I was undocumented for eight years. After Bulgaria's accession to the EU, I could make my presence there legal. T(h)races shows my Bulgaria in the European Union from 2007-2017. This is a personal documentary series. I literally undress in front of the viewer through this project. I had been shooting in black and white before, but the project really came to life after my legal return. I started exploring what I am through these scenes, people, events, places that you see in a new way – slightly humorous, traditionally composed, classic. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of these shots are centered, with a simple composition, all frontal. This compositional structure is chosen in order to have a cohesive connection between the shots themselves and so I can be completely objective, frontal and direct towards myself and people. These shots are not mise-en-scène. It's all immersion – I live among these people, I am shooting something, and maybe it works…

When I say that I've been shooting for ten years, it does not literally mean that it I was constantly working. The shooting process for one hundred frames takes a minute and a half of work, and everything else is waiting. I play with distance. This energizes me. When I stay in Bulgaria for a month and a half, my senses lose their sharpness. I am most productive in the first few weeks. I go back to France and then in a month or so, or after a year, I can return to my Bulgaria. I live with people for two or three weeks, and I encounter the same images many times before I find my shot. Above all, I photograph people, and every photographic encounter is a matter of trust. They give me the shot, I don't make it myself, and if there is no trust, everything falls apart.

What do you think about this kind of photography?

This is not an assignment, but rather personal documentary photography. I would say – intimate, because I do not benefit from it. It is a mirror of myself. I need to do it. It's like a documentary project about my whole life and I will continue to shoot it as long as I am an emigrant. I have some unresolved things with Bulgaria. I want to answer one question for myself: Did I leave it or did it drive me away? These questions gnaw at me constantly and feed the urge to keep shooting. The idea is to make a book, which is already in the works.

What will it be called?

I have two ideas – one is T(h)races as in tracks and also Thracians, and the other is It's Just A Facefrom a photo I took in Buzludja, which is not part of the series. I have an offer from Gomma Books and we are in the process of signing a contract. The book should come out in the spring of 2019.

To what extent can the emotional be part of the documentary?

Everything is allowed in a documentary series. T(h)races is a game of distance. I'm inside the plot, but only halfway. I deliberately stand with one foot on the outside. It is difficult to limit or quantify the emotions you put into the work. When I work with people, I try to shorten the distance so that I can be emotionally present through them.

My photographs in Bulgaria are something like a road trip. I travel from place to place, from person to person, and I don't know what will happen, I just have to be there. It's a bit like fishing. If I do a good    job embedding myself into the situation and among the people, they forget about me and often exceed my expectations. It takes a lot of time and it takes working with people, because no matter if they're poor or rich, they are not stupid. Even if there is not much of a dialogue, my presence as a person and the sincerity of it is at play. People accept me relatively quickly, not because of my qualities as a  photographer, but because of my presence and because of my humanity and decency. This is the key to success in T(h)races.

What makes a photograph a document?

When I talk about photography, I mean a series of pictures that are connected to each other, they tell a story or say something about the person who created them. Anyone can make documentary photography, whether by design or not, as long as the series has a sense of time. For example, you take a selfie every day for fifteen years and you have a documentary series. Rafael Trobat has been taking pictures of Nicaragua for thirty years, Darcy Padilla has been photographing the same family for forty-fifty years. Time is the most important element – over the course of this many years it will change not only the author, but also the plot. This feeling is what makes photography documentary in my opinion. 

What are some of the images in your photos and where do you find them? 

Photos I've taken for assignments and art residencies often lead to my personal series. That's how I found the Zanzibar CLUB. It's a bar in Sète, where I lived for five years, but I only discovered it while working for a documentary photography festival, the third largest in France – ImageSingulières. The Zanzibar Club Bar was 150 meters from my house, but I had no idea it existed. I discovered it by accident while photographing caravans for another project outside of Sète. Photographers often travel far for their projects, and I found something 150 meters from my home that was as difficult to photograph as if I had been 15,000 km away. Sometimes you don't have to walk that far to find yourself and something you like. Zanzibar CLUB is a documentary project, I've been working on it for three-four years and it's still ongoing. It is delicate work to capture footage from an area of 24 sq.m. and the shots are not always there. Most of it is waiting for something to happen.

What did you learn about the past and present of Bulgaria while working on T(h)races?

I do not show Bulgaria in these photos, but rather myself in relation to Bulgaria. My Bulgaria is caught in a cycle – a constant struggle between past and future. Somehow it wants to be far ahead, but at the same time it stays very far behind. The same is true for me – this searching, this wandering – the moment I take a shot captures it too – there is a smile, there is also sadness. But I can't offer a full survey – I'm not a sociologist or a historian, and I don't have the necessary background.

What would you do besides photography if time and money weren't an issue?

If it wasn't for photography, I don't know what I would do. My parents are engineers and they wanted me to be one too. Because of them, I studied at VIAS for three and a half years. Even after spending so much time there, I left the university so that I could devote myself to photography. I worked as an assistant at the Karkelanov studio for two and a half years, which gave me a good technical base in photography. My goal in life was to make a living doing photography. I have a plan B, but fortunately I have not had to use it thus far. That's why I emigrated to France – to pursue documentary photography and make a living mostly by doing that. I have a printing studio for photography, but 70% of what I earn comes from the residencies I have been doing in France for four years. The remaining 30% is from printing. I have done this for big festivals, and now a smaller one too. The printing element really helps me, and it is still related to photography –I don't print my own things, but my colleagues' work. This is also an inspiration. I hope things can continue like this, because I know myself and I would not want to practice another profession.