The project made possible the preservation, identification, registration and promotion of this important piece of Albania’s cultural heritage, which is testimony to traditions and society in the region of Korca in the early 20th century.
TIRANA, April 29 – Thousands of negatives from the early 20th century Sotiri photo collection in the southeastern town of Kor衠have been inventoried in a project carried out by the National Centre of Cultural Heritage Inventorisation.
The project which concluded with an exhibition of the Sotiri photo collection made possible the preservation, identification, registration and promotion of this important piece of Albania’s cultural heritage, which is testimony to traditions and society in the region of Korca in the early 20th century.
“This heritage has now been documented in a digital system with identifying physical and technical data enabling the study and promotion of the collection,” says the culture ministry in a statement.
The Sotiri photo collection includes 12,000 negatives, cameras and historical items belonging to people photographed by the Sotiri and is part of the Golden age of Albanian photography along with the Marubi collection in the northern Albanian city of Shkodra.
Kristaq Sotiri learned photography in the United States where he spent the first twenty years of his adult life. He studied most notably in Los Angeles with George Steckel, a representative of the National Photographic Association. There he learned not only the basic techniques of photographic portraiture, but was also acquainted with the style of pictorialism, which was quite in fashion at the time. According to Francois Cheval, the director of the Museum Nic걨or Ni걣e in France, Sotiri was a master in capturing the proper instant and in creating intelligent compositions of events and portraits of people of his city… These portraits gave Sotiri the opportunity to apply pictorialism, which makes the collection of his images a rare thing within the Albanian photography tradition.
Kristaq Sotiri returned from New York in 1923. The studio he opened was located in the heart of the city of Kor衠close to the seat of the Orthodox archbishop. His output would include no fewer than 15,000 negatives. The formats, all on glass plates, range from 10 x 13 cm to 30 x 40 cm. The several hundred signed prints he left are also of exceptional interest, since the overwhelming majority of collections of Albanian photography contain negatives alone.
Printed on matte paper, these proofs offer subtle contrasts in tint, ranging from sepia to red.
The photographer’s eye lingers on Korca’s beggars and the atmosphere of the city’s bazaar, on the mountain snowfalls shepherds leading their flock or a group of Roma women, say Loic Chauvin and Christian Raby in their “Albania, a photographic journey” book.
Since 2008, young artists from all over the world have been invited to Kor衠to show their best works in the Sotiri international photo competition. The Sotiri Prize aims to support new developments in the field of photography, both in Albania and internationally, as well as to promote the values of the Sotiri collection as part of the Albanian photography heritage.
