SINIŠA PAŠALIĆ: A QUARTER CENTURY BEHIND THE LENS CROWNED WITH AN INTERESTING EXHIBITION

Sinisa Pasalic is one of the leading photojournalists in Banja Luka, whose exhibition of newspaper photographs will open on May 20 at 7 p.m. in the Small Exhibition Hall of the Banski Dvor.

PHOTO: Velibor Tripić

This is his first solo exhibition after twenty-five years of experience in the media, and the exhibition will last for ten days, until May 30.

How did your beginnings in the profession of photojournalist look like?

PAŠALIĆ: I started working in 1998 at Glas. I worked until 1999 when I went to the army. I served in the Army of Republika Srpska, the last class, for 9 months. After I finished with the army, I got a job at the magazine Reporter. I worked there for almost two years, and I've been with Euro Blic since 2002, so it's been 22 years.

What attracted you to this profession?

PAŠALIĆ: I was supposed to be a tourist guide, but I didn't pass the entrance exam. That was the only four-year course at the Hospitality School. After I failed, my grandmother told me to enroll anywhere, and later she would transfer me to the Hospitality School. I enrolled in the Agricultural School to become a butcher. However, due to a physical altercation, I was expelled from the Agricultural School on the fifteenth day, and the only available place was in the then Chemical, now Technological School, majoring in Photography. I got into a good class there, and in the end, it turned out that we were a very good generation. From that generation, we have many highly educated individuals, including professors, teachers, and educators. Five of us from the class work as photographers, and from this perspective, I wouldn't change my job for any other.

You've been working for a quarter of a century, and technology has changed significantly during that time?

PAŠALIĆ: I'm glad that my generation of photojournalists, who have been in this profession since the last millennium, has experienced the complete technological revolution. I remember that, to us kids, the late Rastko Ostojić, the then photo editor at Glas Srpske, would give us film and say "two shots from two angles." Then we would take that film, or rather the camera, to the printing house, manually cut the piece of film with so-called underwear, develop the film, make a positive, and then dry that positive to Gospodska Street to the editorial office. There they would later laminate it with rulers, protractors, scissors, Oho glue, and who knows what else. After developing the film in darkrooms, came negative scanners into which the developed film was inserted to digitize the photographs, to today's technologies where transferring photographs has become "Formula One" compared to the past.

Who did you learn the craft from in the beginning?

PAŠALIĆ: I don't have anyone special. Even today, every day, I review Reuters, AP, EPA, Adobe Stock to see what kind of photographs are there. I mostly like some street variants. Hats off to everyone, but if there's no person in the photo, it's not it.

Many people don't want to end up in photographs. In that regard, how risky is the job of a photojournalist?

PAŠALIĆ: Statistics show that it is one of the riskiest jobs in recent years, even decades. All the footage we have today from the Gaza Strip had to be done by photojournalists. They are on the front line.

And here with us?

PAŠALIĆ: There's not much meat here, we mostly cover politics and crime news. The exception is when we dedicate an entire day to one report or when we go somewhere for two to three days where we have more space for photography.

A interesting task for photojournalists is, for example, Kočić's assembly?

PAŠALIĆ: Yes, by chance, I am the current winner of BETA's photo contest of the year for Southeast Europe, and that winning photo was taken at Kočić's assembly. I also have an anecdote from Kočić's assembly. It was in 2016 or a little later, I'm not sure. I went there and saw under one stand, or rather a bar with umbrellas, a girl serving in thongs and a bra. I asked her if I could take a picture of her. She agreed, she even told me to sit at the bar and that I didn't have to pay anything, that I could drink all day at her expense. At that moment, she was adorned with at least seven or eight hundred KM. We published those photos. Later, the organizers of the assembly called the editorial office and asked for the text and photos to be withdrawn. Of course, that was not withdrawn, and well, I'll modestly say that I am partly responsible for there being no more strippers and waitresses in underwear at Kočić's assembly.

What other anecdotes from the field do you remember?

PAŠALIĆ: My best anecdote is from the time when I was a kid and photographed Pierre Prosper, an American wanted for war crimes in former Yugoslavia. At the end of 1998, he came to the old press center in Banja Luka, and the late Rastko Ostojić told me, "kid, you're going to take the exam." I'm thinking, what exam. The man sits at a table, the stupidest thing possible to photograph. I took a picture of him, and when I got to the darkroom, I cut the film and now I'm developing it, I turn on the control light, and I panic because the head on the negative isn't dark. At that moment, I think I did something wrong and that I would be fired. When I dried the film, I slapped myself because I realized that I had photographed a black man and that it was normal for the face to be light on the negative. That was the beginning of my career.

What do you think is the difference between artistic and journalistic photography?

PAŠALIĆ: We photojournalists are tough when it comes to artistic photography. For us, a photograph is a photograph. We can take a photograph every day on the street to be, in quotation marks, artistic, and we can also fool around with various models, makeup, doubling. What I don't like is post-production, I personally don't support it. If we change 40 percent of the content in post-production, it's no longer photography. It doesn't reflect reality. I think Norway is the first country to pass a law that billboards advertising underwear, clothing, and the like must have a sign in the corner stating that the photo is not real. As in the world, so here, young people are starting to have problems with anorexia and various diseases by looking at photoshopped models.

How many photographs have you prepared for the exhibition?

PAŠALIĆ: Fifty photographs will be exhibited according to my choice. Most of them were taken on the street and are not related to protocols and events. When I announced the event, based on the photograph on the invitation and the poster, a lady sent me a message saying that I was against Republika Srpska and that I was demeaning women. The photograph shows a grandmother selling souvenirs, and behind her, you can see a sign "Welcome to Republika Srpska." I replied to the woman who sent me such a message that every photograph that evokes emotion is a good photograph. The exhibition will be, if nothing else, interesting. I believe that 70 percent of the people who come will smile.

The exhibition doesn't have a title. Why is that?

PAŠALIĆ: I was thinking about how to give titles to exhibitions, and my friends suggested that the title be "On the border," but I didn't want that because it's an exhibition between the imaginary political world that says how nice, good, and golden everything is, to the real picture we can see on the street. It's simply an exhibition of newspaper photographs. When we open newspapers anywhere in the world, the first page is politics, and the last is sports, so the exhibition will be roughly like flipping through a newspaper. There are photographs from the first and only erotic fair in Banja Luka, through Pedi Eshdaun with goats, to punk photographs of Milorad Dodik. Literally, there is everything.

Text: Milan Rakulj / Photo: Velibor Tripić