alterBp: Reloaded

After a long while, I'm finally getting some inspiration again.

It might be a surprise to some of you, but all the previous photos on this blog so far (with the exception of the ones from Szombathely) were taken with a broken little point-and-shoot camera borrowed from my friend. I had to, literally, tie the camera to the tripod with a pair of shoelaces. And I'm not joking.
It wasn't designed for low-light photography at all, either, so the majority of the time was spent trying to figure out ways to get the camera to do what I wanted.


In early March, however, something happened that I have been waiting for for well over 2 years: my first ever DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera has finally arrived, all the way from the UK. :-)
It's not some thousand-dollar professional body of course, and I only have the cheap kit lens for it - but that little mirror in there will already make such a huge difference that from now on the quality of the photos on this site will depend solely on my skills (or the lack thereof), rather than what could be done with the camera.


Ever since the person most important to me in my life has been taken away, I've lost all motivation and will to live, which is why the blog has been dead for close to two months now. Now however, I'm starting to feel like at least the inspiration is starting to trickle back behind my eyes. :)

I'm starting to feel less and less like I know who I am, where my life is going, and whether or not there is any point in continuing it.
At least I know I'm not alone with that.

Why do I only feel alive when I'm balancing on the threshold between life and death 11 stories up?...

"Why does it feel more real when I dream than when I am awake?..."

My new record...

...25 floors.

Puny little highrises, and a cute little toy tram...

To be continued.

Together we stand... divided we fall

Because of the things that happened in the past few weeks, I haven't taken a single photo since I returned to Budapest, so here are some shots from recent months.

Do you know what it's like when the girl you love is taken by her parents, quite literally interrogated (about you, her, and every little detail that is really no one else's business), told a bunch of lies about you, then put on an airplane to be taken to the other side of the continent so that you may never see her again? Without even being able to say goodbye... Then a few weeks on you get an email from her, basically saying "we'll never see each other again" and that we better pretend like we never even knew each other..

Moral of the story: don't let anyone get too close... except those you want to beat the shit out of.

Back in November, a British professional photographer sent me a message saying he will be coming to Budapest soon, and I seem to be the only Urbexer around. I agreed to meet him and show him some interesting places - these ended up being the insides of the Elizabeth and Liberty bridges (although we had a lot more planned, but time was short).

Of course, he had a proper camera - and this right here, is the first photo I've ever taken with a DSLR. :-)

At the top of the bridge, Andy successfully got himself stuck in a hole in the most noticable place possible. He could only move one arm... but he wasn't trying to free himself with it :-)

We were still inside Elizabeth bridge when the city was suddenly obscured by thick, magnificent fog.
A foggy night in the city is one of the most melancholic, disturbing, and depressing things one can experience on this planet. I LOVE it.

There were even a few photos of me taken this time :)

by Andy / uselesspsychic

Welcome to Budapest...please watch out for falling objects locals

by Andy / uselesspsychic

I can't swim at all, by the way..

Elizabeth bridge is a luxury residence for arachnids. No wonder, with all the decoration lighting attracting dinner directly into their 'living room' :)

We were right at the top of Liberty bridge when I noticed a drunken group of four blokes being loud and yelling stupid bullshit on the pavement below. All of a sudden, without any warning, one of them simply pulls his fly open and starts pissing right there in the middle of the sidewalk!
I thought I'll see if I can give the asshole a little scare, so I yelled down to him:

STOOOOP  PISSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!

I've often yelled this sentence out the window of abandoned downtown buildings, almost always resulting in hilarious shows of the 'suspect' looking around in panic, and then running off as if he was being chased.
This time though, I made a big mistake. Normally, you can't see a thing looking up at the top of the bridge from the pavement, thanks to the glow of the street lights. But this time, the thick fog, reflecting the light of the city, provided a nice golden backdrop for my silhouette...

One of the dumbasses noticed me right away, and stood there in shock and awe for all of 2 seconds, before reaching in his pocket for his cellphone. I thought he was going to take a picture, so I quickly pulled back inside the steel structure - only to watch him start dialing...

Not only does he piss on the sidewalk, he then goes and sets off the same expensive shitstorm that happens every time one of those self-important people climb up here, who want the whole world to stop what they're doing and watch them turn themselves into a digusting patch of bloody organs. Firetrucks have to be deployed to try and get the bastard down, and the whole bridge has to be closed lest someone's nice car gets squished by a 180 pounds of Dumbass.

I yelled over to Andy, "We have to leave FAST!", then we both started hurrying down the arms of the bridge in opposite directions. I walked down towards the middle of the bridge, while he walked directly above the heads of our dear jackasses.

As soon as I reached street level, I quickly hurried to the other side so they don't see and recognize me. Andy soon appeared, and as he walked towards me, I saw the first patrol car arriving behind him. The jackasses were still all looking up at the sky, wondering where the hell we went. They had no idea at all that we've just escaped from right above their empty heads. :)


By the time we walked over to the Pest side, there were already four police cars on the bridge, soon to be joined by two firetrucks and a police boat equipped with a large spotlight. They used it to scan the bridge up and down, while more police cars were driving around the neighbouring areas, with pigs scouting as if they were looking for a bank robber at least. Liberty bridge was just a big blur of pretty, pretty flashing blue lights :-)

I said goodbye to Andy and walked back to the bridge, where the cops were just about to give up the search. The blue lights were disappearing off the bridge one by one, and soon even the last of the firetrucks left. I walked across the bridge in the thick, beautiful fog. Only dim little specks of light could be seen from the neighbouring Elizabeth bridge.
As I was standing there taking pictures, a girl stopped next to me on a bicycle, grinning at me.
She wasn't from Hungary so we resorted to English, but we had a nice conversation - she said she's never seen fog like that before, and was amazed at the sight. Her name was Katharina - she was from Poland, and initially only came here to study. But she fell in love with Budapest so much that she's decided to move here, and change her name to Katalin. :-)

This makes it even more obvious that the only people who think Budapest is an ugly place and want to leave it behind are the people who were born here - right into the capital of Europe's most unhappy, depressed nation, where everything that was once pretty gets graffitied over and demolished, and everything that still is, will just be sold by the gram by our corrupt politicians. Perhaps it is time to realize that our city is one of Europe's most beautiful cities, and it should be our goddamn duty to preserve it and make sure it stays that way. But instead, the most memorable entities of our country are still our empty-headed politicians and all the crazy shit they say and do to embarass our entire nation. It's time to stop arguing about your political beliefs and which stupid party or politician is better than the other, and realize that you're just picking between liars, thieves and dictators. No egoistic, power-hungry Big Brother figure is going to dwarf 1100+ years of history with his bickering. This is Hungary, god damn it, not Orbánia, not Gyurcsány's Land, not a "People's Republic", and most of all not - yet - Airstrip One.


Now that we brought politics up for the first and last time, it's time for something a lot more meaningful: abstract art. :)

Goodbye... "Angel".

Hello, Szombathely!

Reminiscent of someone's rotting feces and on par with our politicians' moral qualities, a revolting stench of ASS hits your nose with the strength of a thousand fists.

The unexpected olfactory attack penetrates the deepest parts of your subconscious so suddenly and insidiously that you fall right back out of the tram and onto the sidewalk, only to vomit all over yourself.

All doubts disperse, it becomes painfully clear: you have arrived back in Budapest.

My beloved city welcomed me home with this memorable experience, after spending two weeks in the delightful town of Szombathely. It was only my third time there, but it has already become my second favorite city, after the (homeless)capital.

Like I've noted before, I had the opportunity to use a proper DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera for the duration of my stay, thanks to my lovely girlfriend's dad. It's not anything too serious; a Canon EOS 1000D with kit lenses, aka. Canon's cheapest entry-level DSLR. The key to photography is not in the equipment however, but in the photographer's eyes - this is something I've learned after messing around with (often broken) point-and-shoot cameras for so long, especially after people with expensive DSLRs leave comments on my photos saying they wish they had such 'capable' equipment :-)

I spent 16 days in Szombathely, during which I took over 1,500 photos. That's with me barely paying attention to photography, as I was spending time with my girlfriend instead - but still, I somehow managed to take an average of 90 photos a day. :)

So now we shall see what it would be like if I had a (proper) camera, as I've had none for the past year and a half. This was the first time I had the opportunity to use an SLR however I saw fit.

As you can see, it was really fucking cold. What can one do in such freezing temperatures? Well drink, of course!
This was the first time in years that I drank Gin-and-Tonic again, and I realized why I used to like it so much: because it's gooooood!

The shot above was taken in Szombathely's dirtiest little pub, next to the train station.

But let's get down to business already!
During my first visit I found an abandoned Soviet military base. It has a lot of big buildings, which are unfortunately almost completely empty inside. The most interesting thing I found was a piece of a newspaper written in cyrillic letters, all the way from 1989.

Naturally, I made my way to the roof straight away. :)

When I first visited Szombathely this summer, I found a way onto the top of one of the 10-story highrises. Looking over the city skyline, I immediately noticed one building that was towering over the rest of the city with its 14 stories.

That might not sound like a lot for someone who's from a place with skyscrapers and the like, but in Hungary, it's rare to find something much taller than 10 floors, and that's with good reason: in the goldmine of century-old architecture and history that most Hungarian cities are, a featureless glass building or skyscraper would look absolutely useless, as would any building that sticks out from the skyline too much.


Of course, the Socialist era didn't pay too much attention to that, nor did it have much of a sense of aestethics:

As I found out, this is the tallest building in the city of Szombathely and the surrounding area, and as soon as I spotted it I decided I was going to conquer it the next time I'm here. And the icing on the cake? The three-story antenna tower on top :-)

It overshadowed the city's cute little 3-4 story buildings, like an evil monster of concrete...

...what a menacing sight.

Here's the above shot, only this time... from the other side:

  Hehehe...

To be continued.