It was 1998. I’m in the back seat of dad’s car and we go to the sea. I know I have 14 unforgettable days ahead of me. I can hardly wait to get on the ferry and get to the island of Brač, in the town of Supetar. I received as a gift a disposable camera that can go underwater. I’m not sure how to use it, but it doesn’t matter either. They told me to develop something in it and get photos. I took photos, but my father took more. I can’t wait to eat peaches on the beach and grill stuffed squid in the apartment. I start thinking out loud and getting on everyone’s nerves in the car. I don’t care because everything is great and everyone is ultimately happy. I already know that my skin will burn and it will be hot, but it’s all worth, for the sea, new people, and maybe new friends.

Now is 2020. I get in the car, but now I’m the driver. I no longer drive carefree because I travel to Split for work and I drive alone. The differences are big. The ride is more interesting to me because I drive and I have to follow the road. I don’t have a disposable camera but I travel fully equipped with photograph gears with which I need to photograph a small intimate wedding. I also carry an analog camera with me. I am sitting alone on the beach, only the sea can be heard. A few old women pass. I hear on the radio how new centers of coronavirus have appeared in Croatia. This time I’m not going to Brač because the island is one of the hotspots of the COVID-19 virus. There are no people like before, you hear the emptiness of the space around. One vacation at sea with my parents was my last, and I wasn’t even knowing it. Nothing is the same anymore.”

In just a few months, the whole world has changed, and the people too. Coronavirus deleted almost all plans that affected various business sectors, including Croatian tourism. The closed borders were the beginning of worries that called into question the tourist season in Croatia. No one was ready for this scenario. Our people make up only 12% of total tourism. The drop in traffic is up to 70%. Various topics in the healthcare system and politics are touched and they are trying to find solutions to the coming crisis. My photography profession is under attack along with many other activities. We have the opportunity to show a new world, it cannot be taken away from us. The camera is always with us. We are always ready to go very far for the quality cadre.

“The world will no longer be the same place!” – a sentence with which this year started. With a series of photographs, I show the feeling of empty space and examine the feelings of the past and the present in almost the same places on the Adriatic coast. I imagine a sense of carefreeness and joy in 1998 as I sit on the pier, completely alienated. 22 years later.