My name is Csaba Vigh, I am the photograper and graphic designer of this Budapest based photographic studio, called CHABAPHOTO. I was born from a Hungarian father and a Russian mother in St. Petersburg in 1977 and lived there till the age of four, when moved to Hungary escaping the reach of the communist reality. Growing up there in the countryside with my grandparents was a great adventure, also the first steps in photo taking. Under my grandfather's guidance an amateur dark room and two amazing Zenit TTL cameras were the playground during primary school, also the seeds of the future vocation.

Fortunately, from early on I knew that doing anything other than taking pictures is a serious waste of my time, as I want to be a full time photographer as soon as possible. With this point fixed, I had no time to loose and opened CHABAPHOTO during the first year of high-school and shot extensive amounts of portfolios and portraits. By graduation I felt ready to step-up and find out how the tricky details are done in professional levels, so I moved from Budapest to Miami to get closer to the dream I was chasing back then and ever since.

In South-Beach and Fort-Lauderdale I assisted pros and got the necessary tricks of the trade from first hand, also started to work as a freelance portrait photographer to build a personal portfolio and a stock image bank. Life in Ocean Drive was a huge leap after Russia and post-socialist Hungary, new ways of learning opened up, internet and Photoshop got into reach, high-end software and hardware become the workhorses instead of me. The digital era came into the picture, and got my deepest attention. So much, that next to photography I started to learn and implement graphic design and quality retouching, so I don't have to handle the half done work to someone else to finish it up for me.

The latin side of Miami also got a strong hold on me, I had better and closer connections with the latin-americans than with the natives. They are original, naturally happy and positive, open to life, just the way we all should be.. wondering about these things, I fell in love to a girl from Argentina and moved to Buenos-Aires for the next seven years or so.

Travelling around South-America shooting stock images is a never fading treasure in my heart, even knowing that these years had steep ups and downs. In 2000 after opening CHABAPHOTO in BsAs, the country collapsed into a civil war with hyperinflation without the slightest warning, seriously affecting the type of photograhy needed. But again, a year after dust settled, the city got back to be "a little Europe" in the americas, and it became a pleasure to be a photographer in Argentina. Great times, I had the fortune to work, create and become friends with many artists, actors and musicians who taught me through countless frames, where and how can a photographer find the right side of an other human being. Whilst living there, I incorporated into myself as much as possible from their spirit, strong will and no-matter-what positive attitude to life.

Reaching the middle-age crisis at 27 I didn't want to risk anything anymore, so when Argentina fell to the next civil uprising, the urge to take roots and live a normal life on stable grounds won hands down. Hungary joined the Europian Union and I moved back to Budapest for a clean start without wars and economical crisis, right from the beginning.

Life is a wonderful journey, I am so glad to be part of it. These days I am shooting and designing catalogs, CDs, illustration books, photo/graphic advertisements and fashion works for clients as Sony BMG, Sony Entertainment, Warner Brothers, Universal Music, L'Oreal, GE, ELLE, La Femme, Elite, Cosmopolitan, Tetrapak, Motorola, Ford, Toyota. With the latest digital hardware and software at command, the creation of intriguing images through digital manipulation is a dream coming true for me, the already wide horizons of photography broadened to endless possibilities.

Tags

See All Tags (1)