I first fell in love with fortresses as a child, but I remembered my love again when visiting medieval fortresses in England. Around the turn of the millennia, I was living in England for six years. Then, I only had a basic compact camera, so the photos are not really quality ones. In the past few years I turned my interest to photography again, but a little more seriously. I selected the material of the exhibition from photos I took during this short period of time.

Photographer is just a hobby for me, I am an amateur only. I never had a pro camera; I only used simple, even simpler ones. I don't even use photoshop to modify the photos, I only do light correction. Black and white, sepia and colour shots can be found among the photos I took, but none of them are my specialities. The number of data in my store and photos increase day by day. My journeys to Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Scotland and Syria are to complete the stores with the missing pictures.

Fortresses in Hungary are really dilapidated. Many of them were under siege number of times in the past and they have been decaying ever since. West of Hungary many of the fortresses and castles have been taken care for, inviting the visitors. Foreign visitors to Hungary are not that happy when they visit these rundown fortresses, which is a sad thing indeed. In Hungary, there is not one medieval fortress that is in its original state. However, there are fortresses that have been maintained, there are intentions to rebuild period details, but due to lack of finances these works are really slow. A refreshing example is the Szadvár case where the local circle of friends decided to finance works on the fortress in Szádvár.

It happened to me several times that I took a long trip to see a fortress, but when I arrived, the weather was so bad that the photos I took had very background with the rain. When I visit a fortress, castle or a ruin, my intention is to study the topic as long as possible. I research the story of the building, I learn about their legend, and history. Roland Markó (Nagykanizsa)