How to successfully transpose the personal vision and the spirit of an unrepeatable landscape? This mysterious bay of the southern Adriatic, the full contrast between the festive Mediterranean vegetation that "connects" the conglomerates of the stone houses in coastal settlements, and its contradictory, steep, rough hills that rush from the calm sea surface to the sky.
Boka stone and sea- photo Anton Gula Marković
It is not easy to convey the magic spirit, but also the power of the almost mythical Boka, not the sunny, let alone the rainy, when gray clouds are gathered inside the natural amphitheater of the Bay as if in a crater of an extinguished volcano. For this, you need not only photographic (or paint) excellence, but also a sense of motive and atmosphere, and knowledge of the Bay’s spirit and the love for it.
All this was happily united in Anton Gula Markovic and, therefore, our encounter with his photographic works always thrills us again, but is also very touching. Love and respect for the heritage of Boka, as a native of this region, he received from his parents and adopted growing up. With his diligent work he perfected technical knowledge and developed opportunities, and the feeling for the right moment and motive has never abandoned him. And who would eventually be able to better understand all the places and natural secrets of our Bay, if not the one who crossed it by foot, by motor, car, plane, and eventually, by diving he gets to know the submarine flora of the Bay.
Boka stone and sea- photo Anton Gula Marković
In order to feel (and successfully transmit) the very essence of Boka, he wanted to see it from unusual positions, climbing the surrounding hills, to reach all the mountain slopes, since in that way he could better get to know the Bay and have a more complete vision and a rarer perspective. And so he creates the great glimpses of the eternal Sinus Risonicus from Gornji Stoliv... Of course, he also immortalized his Gornja Lastva - that untouched pictorial ancient place on the slopes of Vrmac.
Gornja Lastva – photo Anton Gula Marković
But then he had to go to the end - to get to know the Bay from the air. Indeed, as a sports pilot, he went to see Boka beneath the clouds, enjoyed the game of the sun and witnessed the "silver" surface of the sea, within which, like rare pearls, the islands of St. Juraj, Lady of the Rocks, Mamula rise from.. Of course, he did not miss recording all these fantastic moments with his device, and some of these works still testify of a Bay with rare and rich natural and architectural heritage and of a photographer who turned his love for his native place into images available to numerous worshipers of an old culture that is slowly disappearing.
Boka stone and sea- photo Anton Gula Marković
Here, first of all, we refer to the Gula’s anthology works from the 70's, the black and white photographs of a small world - Tivat originals, fishermen, old houses, people and landscapes dominated today by the modern and foreign “town” of Porto Montenegro with a concreted coastline, amazing residences and even more dazzling yachts. As we walk along this coast of luxury, among the concealed eastern millionaires, we recall with nostalgia the small Bay’s world of antique things and ordinary people which the photographs by Anton Markovic from Boka will forever stand as witnesses. "
Text by prof. Željko Brguljan, on October 13th, 2018, read more at Boka news
