András Balla Pocking, 1945

His father was the director of the Arboretum in Szarvas until 1956. Balla married in 1970 and moved to Esztergom. His son Gergely Balla is also photographing.  After graduating from the Veszprém Chemical Engineering School,  between 1965-1970 he studied at the Budapest University of Horticulture and Landscape Design. After graduating, he worked as a gardener engineer until the 1980s.  He lives in Esztergom. Photographed since 1975. Founding member of the Esztergom Photo Club; (1975) Member of the Photography Section of the Young Artists' Club, then  the Head of it; Artistic Director of the Esztergom Photo Biennial Series from the beginning to 2016; Since 1979 he has been a member of the STB group (Sipeki-Tamási-Balla), in the same year he joined the MFSZ. He is a member of the Association of Young People's Photography (FFS), created by the federation, then the artistic director of it. Until the 1980s he made black-and-white sequences and experimental images, then turned to the documentation trend. She photographed gardens, garden kitsch and people living in nature. Today, a distinctive balla photographic trend has emerged, a direction that can be summed up in the variety of topics, the ways of solving solutions, brave experimentation and the very demanding display.

Major sequences of his work: 1972-1978: It is forbidden to take pictures! (260 pictures); 1975–1988: The hermit of Imre Borostyán (850 pictures); From 1975: Garden kitsch (2300 pictures); 1975–1985: Socialist unrealism (image of 208 monuments, statues, reliefs, etc.); From 1974: Pub bikes (360, picture of bicycles parked in front of pubs); 1985: French ornamental gardens; 1988: Italian ornamental gardens.

Prizes: 1975, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1989: Artistic scholarship of Komárom County; 1985: Paris, then 1988: Rome: Scholarship for Renaissance and Baroque gardens. 1984: Pro for Urbe for Esztergom; 1992: Rudolf Balogh Award.

Pictures from public collections: Hungarian Museum of Photography, Balassi Balint Museum Esztergom, Ville de Paris, Air France.

His books: Esztergom, Budapest, 1984; Esztergom, 1991. Balla András 15/50. MCMXCV Private Edition (Catalog of the Ernst Museum Exhibition), Esztergom, 1995. Betonpillango, Private Edition, Esztergom, 1997, A.Balla. The hermit 2010. Esztergom, László Fábián: András Balla MMA 2017 Budapest.