Reviews
In his photographs I can hear the hoofbeats...As editor-in-chief of EZDA, the only magazine in Bulgaria devoted to horses and equestrian sport, I have worked with quite a few photographers over five years of publishing. And I have to admit that the turnover of photographers of every calibre behind EZDA's lens was, and still is, high. That is because horses are very hard to photograph.
The second thing I have to admit is that for a long time we worked together without ever meeting in person, without my ever shaking the photographer's hand. His pictures were the bridge of our trust. That was the curious thing about my online collaboration with Dimitar Hristov.
Of course, I found him on the internet. The horse photographs on his website astonished me. His eye had caught everything you could expect from a horse: power, grace, drive, whirlwind... In those four-legged black beauties every muscle quivers with effort, every jump is a flight over the obstacle. Dimitar manages to capture all of this in an instant.
I have never seen better shots of horse racing. Gallop, whip, flying mud, a jockey charging forward, a horse's eye... and all of it in a single frame.
Photographing a horse is more than art to me, yet Mitko seems to have asked the horse to pose. That is magic. A herd may seem easier to capture. But either way, I am convinced that Dimitar Hristov understands horses. Few people can.
Ekaterina Doncheva
Editor-in-chief of EZDA magazine
“Dimitar gives the horse back its status as something natural – without myth, without eroticism.”
Prof. Georgi Lozanov
lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, Sofia University
Dimitar Hristov's photo album “The Horses” is a tribute and a declaration of love to man's age-old friend and companion, the horse – as comrade, helper and dream. Since time immemorial the horse has followed man, or perhaps man has followed the horse. In truth, they have walked together through the centuries in harmony: man, changing and searching; the horse, a patient brother and as perfect as ever.
“The Horses” is also the first photo album published in Bulgaria that is devoted entirely to these beautiful and mythical creatures. The author blends two technically different approaches – the means of photography and the expressiveness of painting – in an attempt to interweave the real image with a mystical atmosphere, so that together they heighten the effect and give the viewer the full range of feelings that horses evoke.
Besides the beautiful photographs, the album weaves in quotations from classics of world literature who created unforgettable poetic images of the horse as the embodiment of beauty and creation – Plato, Cervantes, Kipling, Bulgakov, Radichkov…
G. Terziev
Elegance, beauty, grace, strength, vivid individuality and a unique, original style – these are the photographs of Dimitar Hristov.
Horses – a symbol of freedom-loving nature and indomitable will. They combine the courage of the lion, the sight of the eagle, the speed of the deer and the cunning of the fox...
Turning the pages of this work of art, I come across passages from classics of world literature.
And if in some places the horses have a “long neck” and “beautiful forms”, and elsewhere they are unruly, with “a neck like a pole, a back like a coffin and the heart of a dragon”, it is because every page breathes the defiance of the wild and man's desire to tame it.
Veneta Ivanova, Helikon Dobrich
The author's great passion for horses helped create these unique photographs. Works so beautifully sculpted from light that they are truly worthy of depicting this animal, so important to man – the horse. And the texts chosen by Dimitar Hristov, a good friend of Helikon, complement each photograph and create a beautiful feeling of reverence for these animals.
Radostin Naydenov, Helikon Vitosha
