Ariel Pedatzur Tells a Story of Home in “Balaton”

“Balaton” was shot in Lake Balaton in Hungary. Sára and I decided to take the car from Vienna and drive over to the lake. We didn’t choose this location randomly at all, Sára was born in Hungary and moved to Austria when she was six, but her grandmother stayed there. The connection Sára has with Lake Balaton and her grandmother Anna is a strong one. All of her childhood memories are from this Lake, coming every summer and revisiting familiar spots, but still, every time discovering something new.

We were able to sleep in Anna’s house while we shot and that allowed us to dive into the atmosphere of Sára’s memories. Inspired by the ‘90s, Anna’s aura, and Anna’s clothes, Sára, who is very into clothing and styling, picked up her favorite items and put them all together for this shoot. The color palette stuck to pastel colors and with that palette guiding us, the backgrounds and tones of the photos had to fit to the dreamy atmosphere. In those three days that we spent there, we explored the lake together, and for me, it felt like I was going back in time. There was something about the simple diversity that is naturally existing there that is hard to put in words.

At the end of the ‘90s Sára’s dad and his brother used to do horse shows in their horse ranch for East German tourists, and today it is being used for summer camps. We had to include this ranch because there is something so magical about it. As soon as we arrived I turned my back for a second, and a second later Sára and her sister Blanka were already far in between the horses. That’s where we created the Sisters images of the two of them, which was important for me because I feel that this whole idea was telling a story of home.