Trying to capture traditional Albania on Silbersalz35 film – Part 1

In August 2025, I visited Albania for the first time. It wasn’t a dedicated photography trip, but a family vacation. Still, I wanted to seize the opportunity to photograph this fascinating and rapidly changing country. Alongside my digital camera, I definitely wanted to shoot on film as well, hoping that the analog look would perfectly capture the character of some of the more traditional, untouched places.

After planning for a long time to bring my Mamiya 645, I lost my nerve just before leaving and, at the very last second, decided to take alongside my digital camera my black Minolta SRT-101 with the Minolta MD W-Rokkor 3.5/28mm, MC-Rokkor-PF 1.4/58mm, and Minolta MD Tele Rokkor 2.5/100mm, along with five rolls of Silbersalz35 film. 

Lin

Lin is a small village on Lake Ohrid, near the North Macedonian border. Up until three or four years ago, this was a traditional fishing village. Today, it is increasingly becoming a tourist destination. However, in August 2025, it was still a quite peaceful and authentic place, filled with friendly people—both locals and visitors alike.

Lin is situated on a peninsula jutting into the lake and boasts a very special photo spot: a bunker from Albania’s communist era (there are more than 100,000 of them across the country!) located at the rocky tip of the peninsula. It offers a magnificent view over the lake and across to the North Macedonian shore. It’s my son on top of bunker. Inside the bunker now there are orthodox christian icons.

Lin has only one street where locals offer their produce—when we were there, it was mostly onions and pickled vegetables (very hot chilies!), as well as delicious burek. In the evening, both locals and tourists gather there for a stroll.

Albania has a rich birdlife. In late August, crowds of swallows were congregating on the chaotic power lines in front of the minaret of Lin’s small mosque.

Bual near Përmet

Bual was perhaps the most unique place we visited in Albania. It is a nearly abandoned village of old stone houses, perched high above the Vjosa Valley.

An old man’s workhorse (there are still many of them, also mules and donkeys in rural Albania) saddled for herding his two cows out to graze.

Petulla, a typical Albanian breakfast, served in the wonderful traditional guesthouse in Bual. We met many friendly people throughout Albania, but nowhere did we feel the famous Albanian hospitality more deeply than there.

Shooting these places on Silbersalz35 film wasn’t a bad choice. Some of the images come quite close to the look I was hoping for. But for other images I still regret not bringing the Mamiya 645.

Albania is definitely a wonderful place to travel, explore and for shooting film. I hope the current well-deserved hype about Albania (that I’m also feeding…) will not spoil the country’s unique charakter.

I’m planning a second part with images from Gjirokastra and the Albanien Riviera.

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