Photography

Photography is an art devoted to creating photographs, with its main creative process lying in the choice of composition, lighting and the moment of exposure. The earliest surviving photograph of Bulgarians dates from 1842–1843. Taken in Vienna, it depicts the National Revival figure Todor Minkov and his mother. The portrait is believed to have been made by the Bulgarian photographer Anastas Jovanović. Before the 1880s, the first Bulgarian photographers worked in Central Europe and the major cities of the Ottoman Empire, using the wet collodion process. This was subsequently replaced by dry gelatin bromide plates. Bulgaria's first amateur photographic society was founded in Sofia in 1897.

Photojournalism developed in the early twentieth century, and reportage photography became increasingly popular. Photographic studios expanded, with Pencho Balkanski among the period's most prominent photographers. The Bulgarian Photo Club was formed in 1920, and the first colour photographs in Bulgaria were taken in 1938. Art photography also began to develop, and photographers such as Boncho Karastoyanov, Emil Rashev, Todor Kemilev, Petar Papakochev and Boris Blaskov left their mark on Bulgarian photographic history. After 1951, photographic studios were nationalised. With the establishment of Bulgarian Photography in 1952 and the Pressphoto service in 1957, photography became an officially recognised art in Bulgaria.