Good song for this last day

Exhibitions and other things.

We're flying home. No time for talks but on the short:

1) Might have concerts on the 7th (TBA), 11th (Slobozia) and 15th (Preoteasa) of April somehwere in the city and also out of it. Confirmation of dates and locations TBA (all in Romania, for now)

2) I shall be having solo project, The Ambassadors shown in the Luton Arts Festival sometime at the end of April - date for private view as well as length of exhibition TBA

3) We (Mr. Octavian Balea and myself) will be having a duo show (They Are Us) in Poland from 12th of June to the 31st of August, in the Fotart Gallery in Szczecin. Private view on the 12th of June around 18:00.

4) I shall be showing a solo project, The Ambassadors, in Balder Piha Gallery in Helsinki from 3rd of September all the way to 17th of September. I suspect that the Private View will be on the 3rd around 18:00 also.

5) Work to be featured in an interesting photography magazine - still working on the interview and the images - name and date of show TBA as well

Working oh three different series plus extra magazine and journalism work so not much time left for anything else. We are still working on a few more exhibitions for what has kind of apparently become a European Series of my final year project. Surprises and such coming soon (ha now i can say "The Ambassadors - coming to a city near you" I always wanted to say that because it sounds so global and i heard it in a Toys'R'Us commercial when i was 6 or 7)

I've also looked at starting the Bucharest Arts Festival 2011 but it's still at the initial stage. Project Competition and a blog/site is going to probably come up sometime not very soon but not quite never.

Until then, yeah, not much else. Just wishing the damn plane won't crash and that my work will keep being a project instead of a retrospective of what could've been a good photographer. Maybe. Not.

Let's see how far we've come

Drunken mornings

I was thinking of doing installation art. Photography's lovely and shit but maybe there are some things that cannot be expressed through an image. So really, when i finish university i might just start doing installations as well. i would like it if anyone posted their ideas, impressions and stuff. But probably you won't.

The Ambassadors

Here's a crop from my final series. Final images for the series, the story, the countries where my exhibition will travel to and the exact dates - coming soon.

Everything you wanted someone else to say

Reverse Psychology

To My Mom

Happy Birthday to my Mother

When we were beautiful VI

Good song of the day

When we were beautiful V

I know my dad's photography skills rival Cartier-Bresson and the whole Magnum bunch but every now and again even he had some less then perfect shots. I found this neg which was very very underexposed and needed quite a bit of layering and adjusting to get it at least this good. For the first time on the blog, my blond cousin when he was probably about 3 or 4. Then his parents, then us again.

Midnight fun

When we were beautiful IV

This is one of the places we grew up in, at the country side. It was blue. Really blue and had a small front porch that i never understoof but always loved. More than 15 years from when those pictures were taken i went back to the house and shot it again here, just because i was passing by on our way from the seaside. I remember our green Skoda and my sister sleeping in the rear window and i remember my father taking the first picture of us and the bucket. For a while that's all i remembered of the place

Cradlesong

I don't want to be a faded memory
I don't want to be the ghost that you can't shake
I want to be the real thing

When we were beautiful III

When we were wearing those glasses, the hipsters today were probably not even born.



This image cannot possibly be explained.


My young dad

The birth of alcohol.

Wait(s) for me

When we were beautiful II

Today i'm a bit selfish. All the pictures are about me. The four ladies that appear in the images with me at one year old have brought me up and taken care of me while i was small and obnoxious. Tomorrow we're having my sister again ...









this last one is from the previous film. All the shots from the previous post were of me when i was five (cunningly deduced from the cake) so my sister and my cousin must have been two and a bit...

When we were beautiful

When i left for the UK, i took a box of film that has been lying around from before i was born. I figured that nobody really cares about it so i might just take it and scan it when i can. It took me three years to get around to doing that. It's dozens of films, beginning with my mother's high school graduation up to some shots of us around 8-12 years old.

Some are brilliant, some i knew and some are very random. There's a whole bunch of unknown people, a funeral, a wedding, a sheep, people i know, cars and teenagers who are probably my mum's age. Anyway, since i'm not going to be writing too much on account of me literally living in the darkroom, this week i'll keep posting images i've scanned from those negs. If they don't say anything about the people, don't worry. It just means i don't know either...

So without further delay (but to my surprise), here's scans from a SLIDE film that my dad shot of us in the park and at Christmas (i suspect)

Monday

Solar Energy

Beer

I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I don't know how much wine and whiskey
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horny cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.

C. Bukowski
from "Love is a Mad Dog from Hell"

Obsession

I am currently obessing over this particular picture to print. I like how it looks but this scanned one has had a bit of dodging and burning. For those of you who've seen me throwing stuff in the darkroom, this would be the reason. We're getting there ... but four 30x24 prints later we're still a bit in doubt...

Old habits die hard II

Spring means sun. Sun means starting my camera obscura series. Again. I did this little test in my room today, out of focus and underexposed and digital. But out comes the Wista tomorrow for a proper shot and the continuation of last year's series.

Sofia

Denisa's reaction to the photograph was priceless: "God! You look almost human!"

Our friend's little girl was baptized and we were the Godparents. Sadly and much as always, i was late but i caught up the thing just when it was getting interesting. Churches and me were never really close but this particular ceremony was delightful. And i am not saying it just because i know the parents. I genuinely enjoyed being there.


©some random Nikon guy

And here's some of mine (There were 4-5 guys with Nikon D3x or D3s of whichever they are, who were showing off their kit throughout the ceremony. But when i started putting the Wista together for the final shots, they suddenly dropped their kits and were hovering around the tripod asking about everything. That made me smile a little...):



the crop is a bit off because after framing and checking exposure and stuff i had the uninspired idea to move around and kicked the tripod. Hence, less people in the picture ...



of course, with the adequate light leaks and problems.