By José Manuel Serrano Esparza
Zoltan Fejer, one of the most prestigious and knowledgeable photo technique historians in the world along with Jim McKeown, Jason Schneider, Lars Netopil, Peter Coeln, Valentín Sama, James E. Cornwall, Roger W. Hicks, Dan Havlik, Ryuichi Watanabe, Igor Reznik and others, has been bestowed on March 15, 2022 the Hungarian Golden Cross of Merit Award by the Prime Minister and the President of Hungary as a Photo Technique Historian, a real milestone in his extensive and very brillaint career as a world-class expert on classic cameras, lenses, accessories and all kind of aspects related to photography technique.
He has also been a member of the panel of experts of Westlicht Photographica Auction Wien and Leica Shop for twenty years along with Dr Bahman Bawendi, James E. Cornwall, Peter Göllner, Larry Gubas, Mayumi Kobayashi, Uli Koch, Jim McKeown, Ottmar Michaely, Dr. Milos Mladek, Dr. Wolfgang Netolitzky, Lars Netopil, Bernd K. Otto, Dieter Scheiba, and others.
He is likewise author of the landmark book " Hungarian Cameras ", featuring a 21 x 29 cm size, 180 pages, 254 pictures in black and white and 22 in colour, published by both Hogyf Editio Budapest and Lindemanns Verlag Stuttgart in 2001 with text in German and English, and the fruit of 20 years of very hard work and research by the author who proved that since immediately after the end of the Second World War, in an incredible and praiseworthy way, Hungary was able to develop its own photographic industry with a number of very interesting and high quality cameras and lenses made through sheer ingenuity and knowledge.
Between 1985 and 1993 he was the editor of the Képzőművészeti Kiadó, a top-notch Hugarian magazine, focused on high quality black and white photography.
Since early nineties started the international projection of Zoltán Fejer, consolidating a brilliant career as a photojournalist working for the Városi Fotó Vállalat (Budapest Photography Co. Agency) and becoming a well-known photo art collector and photo artist member of the Photo Artist Association, participating in exhibitions all over Europe, and from around mid nineties he is recognized as a world-class expert both in the field of large cameras, lenses and accessories and in the 35 mm cameras and lenses domain, becoming a phototechnical columnist of Fotóművészet, one of the best photography magazines in the world, and publishing articles on a number of cameras and lenses, also including in-depth researches on the Hungarian Bilux exposure meter, patented in 1938 and of which the Hungarian Optical Works made thousands in 1941.
Some of his large format pictures of architecture appear in the book Building the State: Architecture, politics and state formation in post-war Central Europe written by Virág Molnár in 2013 and published in United States and Canada by Routledge.
In addition, Zoltan Fejer is a member of the European Photo Historical Society and in 2011 he was bestowed the Hungarian Photographers Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
