icicles

auction

photographing an art&collectibles auction is not exactly thrilling. it's actually plain boring in my opinion. but when one of the white gloved guys that handles precious paintings and other objects showed up on the stage carefully holding an animal skin, things got a bit more interesting and a bit more humorous.

snow in bucharest

snow arrived to bucharest late this year. i took these photos last week during a quick morning walk through downtown bucharest. it was the first snow storm of this winter.

a busy weekend

the very short story goes like this: many romanians took the streets in bucharest and in several major cities during this past weekend to show their support for an ousted official of the ministry of public health. for the most part the protests were peaceful, but on saturday and sunday after nightfall some of the protesters became more and more aggressive. the riot police had to intervene and from that point on things degenerated. street battles happened around downtown bucharest for several hours each night. people from all sides - angry youngsters, policemen, journalists, peaceful protesters and bystanders - got caught in a whirlpool of confusion and violence and some got hurt.
i was out taking pictures for the romanian news agency mediafax during both nights. below is an edit of the photos that i took.

here and there

on christmas day viv and i wanted to escape the "eat and drink like there's no tomorrow" atmosphere that major holidays usually bring with them around these parts and went out for a walk. we were in medias, my hometown, a quiet old burg in transilvania. if one would end up in this town on a sunday or a holiday, especially around midday, one might feel like having landed in a deserted place. we ended up going to a part of the town called greweln where i used to go quite often as a kid. it was all quiet and white and it reminded me of the winter season as i had known it as a child. i took some photos along the way and when i downloaded them, one of the images reminded me of another photo i took more than two years ago in new england.

i don't remember whether i was in vermont or new hampshire, but i remember that i took a wrong turn at some point while trying to find a shortcut on my way to an assignment and ended up on a narrow dirt road in the middle of a forrest. it was pretty obvious that i was going the wrong way, but that place was so beautiful and quiet that i decided to keep driving ahead. i was in no hurry so i took my time, stopped the car and took some photos. it was october 6th, the new england fall had just arrived and i had driven straight in the middle of it.

there's no epiphany in this story. it's just another unexpected link that the mind sometimes makes between two apparently unrelated moments.

@ comana

i spent the last sunday of october with viv, biux, irina, bogdana and babicu (not in the pictures) picnicking at the edge of the forrest near the village of comana and exploring a nearby marsh. these are three of the photos i took on film with my canonet camera during that day.

film

two frames from a film i exposed and developed last week. it was an expired 35 mm, 800 iso fujifilm.
the first is a potrait of my good friend andrei. the second came out square-ish because it was at the end of the film and only about two thirds of the frame were actually exposed resulting in an odd shaped frame. it's a photo of three friends walking on one of bucharest's old streets.

shot from the hip: vienna trams

odd

i found this photo while digging into one of my hard drives today. not a great photo, but definitely a somewhat odd moment. it's also very mundane at the same time. i kinda like it because of that.
i took it during one of my wanderings that i used to take on my days off while i was living in new england.

through the window

two frames from my recent trips to my hometown medias and to prague, in czech republic. i took the first one on easter day while traveling by train from medias to sighisoara. the second is from a few days ago while traveling by bus from prague to vienna, austria.

light test

this afternoon i asked vivian, my fiancee, to be my model for a test frame. i was trying to find a good setting for a portrait of a couple that i want to make for a project that i'm involved in. in the end, as it often happens, the test frame was the best image i took on this occasion.

exploring old bucharest

viv and i took a long walk on saturday and at some point ended up nosing around some old buldings located in bucharest's historic district. the area is generally referred to as lipscani district.

eyeing the ham

i met this little guy at my mom's house a couple weeks ago.

stolen

yesterday i was walking through downtown bucharest when i noticed this girl on the steps of the national history museum. her hat and her body posture caught my eye so i took a quick picture before i went on. as i passed by the column on her left i saw a photographer squatting down and pointing his camera in the direction where the girl was. i realized she was posing for him, and that i had just stolen a frame.