Unseen Lithuania

Unseen Lithuania is the English version of Neregeta Lietuva, the famous aerial photographic series by Marius Jovaisa.

The whole series is devoted to the landscape of Lithuania from the air.

Lakes, rivers, dunes, islands, churches, cityscapes and more are shown in panoramic photos taken from over 50 helicopter journeys – and like the name of the series suggests, it is something that not many people have seen before or expect from the small Baltic nation.

There are two books available in English – the 2008 and the 2009 editions, but both show excellent scenes of the country. A DVD has also been released with a selection of the best photos from the shoots.

I would personally recommend the books as the best way to go for many reasons – first and foremost is that the book is big and has large and thick pages with the photos in excellent colour and perfect focus. This is not the case with the DVD – there is a very noticeable loss in quality that is off-putting. Plus the photos on the DVD move around in the slide show making them hard to look at.

Perhaps the funniest thing in the series is “Lithuania in the World” where photos from Lithuania are compared to other locations in the world. The only reason I can think for including this is to enforce the nationalist illusion that most Lithuanians have that “our country is the same as everywhere in the world!” Either that, or better than everywhere.

Whats funny about this segment though is that the authors of the series get a photo from some place in the world and get a similar looking photo from Lithuania and place them side by side. For example, a bird’s eye view of a shallow reef in the Maldives is compared to tufts of grass and dirt poking out of a bog in Lithuania. Crystal clear turquoise water compared to muddy brown/green water. Not exactly the same, is it?

Anyway, apart from that terrible mistake they made of comparing mundane geographical locations to world wonders, the series is great and shows the natural beauty of Lithuania and the cities too.

It would make an excellent coffee table book or present.