"As soon as you enter, time freezes and you find yourself back in your childhood" – Selfieteria in Szabadka: a playground for adults

For me, photography is a great love. Especially the form where I appear to be setting people up, but I'm actually helping them to unfold and show the beauty that they have within them. I always knew I wanted to do photography. I come from a tiny village called Majdány, on the triple border of Serbia, Hungary, and Romania. Six of us are brothers and sisters, I am the eldest.

I had a tough childhood, at the age of 12 I was already working as a day labourer, like adults.

During the school year I worked half days, and during the summer holidays I worked full days, so I didn't study much, but while I was working I was daydreaming. I wouldn't change anything if I could go back in time, I would choose the same family. All six of us are good at a lot of things. This is also evident in my business, Selfieteria, where we did all the walls and rooms: one of my brothers cut the walls, the other did the plastering, we painted, we foiled.

Necessity teaches people to do everything themselves. This is hard to understand for someone who is used to getting everything ready...

I was brought up in the view that everyone is their own destiny-maker, and this is what I followed when I moved to Szabadka (Subotica). I always had several jobs, a fixed one where I was registered as working full-time, and two or three places where I worked part-time. For example, I worked as an ironmonger for a decorator, and we sometimes decorated eleven wedding venues in one weekend. I also worked as a kitchen assistant, so I really took every opportunity to buy my first professional camera. This decorator friend of mine saw the potential in me from my first photos and invited me to take on creative photography as well as ironing, which meant that when they decorated a room, I would take publicity photos of the venue. I was called to many places as a photographer, so I slowly managed to buy the camera that is my great love, which I still use to this day. 

As I listen to your story, it sounds like a folk tale: the eldest girl from a poor family sets out to try her luck, and after many trials, she succeeds. 

The trials and tribulations have indeed shaped me, as I broke a bone between my fourth and fifth vertebrae during an unfortunate lifting accident at work. This happened last March and accelerated my desire to pursue photography. But I didn't open another studio because there are already so many in Szabadka and I feel more creative and playful than that.
We were talking with my partner on the terrace one evening, and the word " selfie museum" came out of his mouth by chance. I'd never heard that word before and immediately turned the lightbulb on over my head that that's what I wanted.

In an instant I was full of ideas, we looked at each other, and we felt that, Oh my God, that's it!

I checked on the Internet that there is one in Serbia, and there are similar ones abroad. I knew that I wanted a more informal, friendly atmosphere compared to them, which triggers more and different emotions. I set up a café where you can sit down, have a lemonade, a coffee, or a hot chocolate, while you look through the selfies you took, and maybe go back if you want to change something. Each room is different, each booth has a theme, and there are seasonal themes such as Christmas and Easter. 

The business is not yet a year and a half old, but I have rooms that are already on their fourth "dress". But there are also rooms that I don't want to change because they are so popular: the "golden room", the " prison" and the western room. A new thing for us is photography in a box, which is very interesting and unique.

It's like taking photos in separate little worlds between shelves.

Yes, and I never have a concept in my head of what each family's pictures and boxes should look like, but ideas come when I see them. They're not pre-set images because they're developed when they're here, which is why a shoot like this takes at least an hour.

Selfieteria's new feature is photography in a box - Photo: Ildikó Bálint

With the Selfie Museum, are you giving people a scenery to imagine themselves in a world that is their dream?

The Selfieteria is a playground for adults. As you enter, time freezes and you're taken back to your childhood. The guests can let go so much, they step out of the daily hustle and bustle, and the hour and a half or two hours fly by so fast it's unbelievable. And the box is particularly magical because it brings people closer together. People who are already very close, and people who are less so, because you have to squeeze in a bit there.

It creates the closeness that is so missing in today's world.

You can see the difference in the families because you can look at their faces, and see what they looked like when they came in, and what they looked like when they left. A mum recently wrote to say thank you, because she felt like a woman again, radiant and wonderful again... It's worth everything to me!

I envy your guests! But can everyone unwind enough to take relaxed, happy, honest pictures? What happens when someone is stressed?

The other day there was a group of people at the Selfie Museum, celebrating a birthday. I could see they were tense and I have a few ways to get them out of it. After a couple of "classic" group shots, I suggested we move away from that for now. I told them that on the count of three, everyone should scream at the top of their lungs with me. At first, they just looked at me, not understanding. I counted to three and they screamed while I took their picture. One young man commented "But the screaming won't show in the picture". I told him I would show him afterwards that it was there! And indeed you can "hear" it because there is a huge energy and sense of liberation in that picture. From then on, the fun and laughter began.

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The Golden Room - Photo: Ildikó Bálint

Are you a good soul watcher?

Yes, it's enough for me to see how a couple looks at each other, which is not always positive, and I want to do something to make them feel and understand why they are together, why they are here. There are work groups of companies coming in for company teambuilding sessions where you can see which colleagues are the ones that pull together more. Or, for example, class teachers bring their classes in for shots and you can spot the little groups of four or five students that stick together! I have a lot of experience of this because I was a victim of this kind of exclusionary mentality as a child. There were many of us brothers and sisters, I wore secondhand clothes, and while my classmates were studying or relaxing, I was picking onions or corn and daydreaming... I wasn't ashamed, but I was lonely in company because of it. I recognize this in the classes and try to forge them into a group, picking people who are not in the same group for a group photo.

Then it's so nice to see a class walk out that door, instead of several different groups of kids as they come in.

Who will help you achieve your dreams?

My partner supports me as much as possible, he is often at home with the child, because we have a three-year-old son. It was he who drew my attention to the mentoring program set up by the Hungarian State Secretariat for National Policy and the Prosperitati Foundation, which was created specifically to support Hungarian entrepreneurs outside Hungary. My partner was already there in the first season, and it was at his recommendation that I took part in the third season of the mentoring program. I am very grateful for this because I have learned, for example, to recognize what is really important and how to deal with failure. It's exemplary when a big entrepreneur with hundreds of employees stands up and tells you how many times he has been down and how many times he has got up. Okay, I thought, maybe I'm not doing it wrong, but that's what it takes to be able to say in five years' time, yes, I did it. I am also grateful to my mentor, we are still in touch, not a week goes by without him sending me a motivational message, asking me where I am, and what I am doing, and giving me some tasks to do...

As we are talking here, I realized that Hungarians in the motherland have brought us Hungarians living in Serbia together through the Mentor Abroad program. Since then, we have been following each other more closely and cooperating where possible. It is important for local Hungarian entrepreneurs to know each other.