image by
Jitka Hanzlova
Rokytnik,
1990-1994

Jitka Hanzlova and I studied both in Essen.
She began her studies a few years later than I did.

Of course we got to know each other.

Anyway: as I went back to my childhood roots with my first project
(remembering 1987-1993), so did Jitka Hanzlova too.
But differently.

While she went back to photographe in her hometown,
I was looking for the feelings,
moods and colors of my childhood memories.

Her stage was a fixed one.
I had to look for mine…

I found it in formerly communist part of Germany.
Eastern colors like in Hungary.
But still Germany, the country I was born in.

Fictional home country.

Jitka Hanzlova was taking images in a small village,
she was taking images of the “simple life”.
Everyday landscapes, nothing spectacular,
but still beautiful.

Small house, summer and winter. Kids playing.
A place you could dream yourself being home,
instantly knowing there is no way back to a life that has gone,
if you ever have lived it.

Quiet images. Nothing complicated.
Not using journalistic, nor documentary language.
That was new that time.

Her Rokytnik images have the taste of childhood memories:
those wonderful hot days of summer,
completely absorbed in the games you played,
forgetting about yourself,
people around you, all familiar faces.
Feeling secure,
just faint hints
from a more complicated world of the grown ups.

Time has gone…

Jitka Hanzlovas book is out of print.
Her Rokytnik images hard to find.
Reason enough to show here some of her images.