How was it yesterday, how is it today? The Hungarian photographer László Lugo Lugosi discovered a series of historical photographs of the “beautiful” city of Salzburg and juxtaposed each of them with an identical photograph from Salzburg in the present day.
Soon after the invention of photography, photo studios were set up in cities in the 19th century to deal with the subject of city views. Large-format cameras were used, which were not suitable for quick snapshots. A series of such carefully composed images of Salzburg, characterised by a particularly fine gradation of grey and sharp detail, are the starting point for the artist’s own work. The historical originals give him clues about the season; lighting conditions and times of day, but above all about the exact location of the photographer over a hundred years ago. Only when these factors are fulfilled is the picture taken, for which Lugo Lugoisi uses a large-format camera specially built according to an old model.
The pairs of images enable the viewer to make an exciting comparison between yesterday and today of the festival city that has become a pictorial myth.