Dr. Kubassek János: Cholnoky Jenő természetábrázoló művészete (Érd, 2002)

Judit Berta Varga: Jenő Cholnoky as Photographer - His relationship with photography

TPemphasizedform. " These are wise words of a mature researcher and he tried to stick to them, even among the most disadvantageous circumstances of photography. We do not have accurate data about the number of his photographs. The inherited glass and plane film negatives, the positives stuck onto cardboards in accordance with the practice of the time point to an order of magnitude of thousands. We know that he used celloidine and silver bromide paper for enlargement, favourable at the turn of the century. We also know that he made the major part of his photographs onto sheets of glasses, which required more a careful treatment. The roll film and the Leica-cube attracted Cholnokf s attention in the 1930s, although many professional and press photographers continued to work with the conventional and more detailed sheets of glasses. His relationship with the photographical profession evolved relatively early, during his years at the university. Presumably, his famous teacher, Dr. Vince Wartha played not a small part in that. The Amateur Photographers' Circle (Műkedvelő Fényképészek Köre) with Dr. Wartha as president was founded on 21 December 1893. The organization of those who used photography as entertainment, hobby or as a scientific aid effected positively the professionals as well. The Hungarian Carpathia Society aiming at the improvement of tourism announced the first Hungarian amateur photographic exhibition already in 1890 - just before the foundation of the Circle. Among the rich choice we find beside the pictures of the high notabilities the landscape photographs of prominent geologists and geographers of the time.. So we can see the photographs from the romantic countryside of the Transylvanian Detunata taken by Lajos Lóczy, who promoted Cholnoky's career and was his beloved and respected master. By the time Warthas club developed into the national association of the amateur photographers called Photo Club in 1899, Cholnoky had arrived from his more than a year long Chinese travels with nearly 400 negatives in his bag

. He joined his contemporaries who travelled and took photographs out of love of adventure {Ferenc Hopp, Rudolf Festetics, Oszkár Vojnich and others) adding the thoroughness of the scientist, and immediately published part of his pictures and drawings.