About my little holiday

I finally found the time to write a little bit. I am back in Bucharest and i can never stop myself from wondering why ... Poland was beyond brilliant. I am not that fond of my series but people seemed to like it, asked questions and generally had a pretty great private view night. It was a lot of hard work but we pulled it off. The city is, as i said, pretty amazing as well, with the lovely Brama Jazz Cafe where i spent half of my days writing and doing various other cvasi-creative stuff. The prices were fairly low and the atmosphere was lovely.





Later on i jumped on the bus and headed for Berlin, where i crashed at Jessie's and Tommi's place for two nights (thanks guys) and had the most amazing time. Berlin is definitely one of the best cities i've ever visited and it would be nice to live there part time. Tommi and i spent a whole day cycling around the city and visiting all the tourist places while hunting a rare item (when the time will come, the item shall be revealed to the general public). All in all, it was a lovely holiday with small exceptions. I reflected a bit on or image in Europe and got to some 1930's Germany suggestions, but that's another post.

Poland: Part I

It's the relaxing morning after a long and hot day. Yesterday i've traveled from Romania to Germany by plane and from there to Poland, by car. The guys at the gallery knew i like off road cars so they arranged to have me picked up in a Grand Cherokee. That just made my day ...
Arriving there, i met Jerzy and we got to talking. Apparently i am to be showing in two galleries in this time, one of which, as i understood is actually a museum room of sorts. Well, that went well anyway.


As we were sitting down having a chat, we got to talking about accommodation and Jerzy said: "Oh, we got you a room in the castle". I thought he was kidding because he tends to make this kind of jokes. But he wasn't. I actually have a room in the castle. Granted, it's not the master bedroom but it's free, it's mine and it's overlooking a brilliant backyard with red brick and stone walls. Just to make things even better, the Castle is home to the Opera House as well. Something must go horribly wrong right about now because it's unnatural for everything to be so spot on.

Life Begins

I am currently sitting on a tea house in Bucharest and loving every second of it. University is over and done with and this is where life begins. I'm quite contempt with the way things are going now. It's a rough period and i understand that it'll be difficult to get something going the way i want it but i am too proud to give up and too stubborn to admit that it may be impossible.

In this last week, i met some of the most amazing people, through my girlfriend. I met her canto teacher's boyfriend which just happened to love my Ambassadors and thought: "Let's shoot a movie on this!". When i told him i had plans to shoot myself shaving my head, he went ballistic and so the madness began. We met on and off and discussed lighting and setting up the space for the first show. FYI the images will be set up on the music stands they use in opera concerts so ... there's a win. So, we got to talking and that and set the dates for the shoot. My Defender is currently having an open heart surgery over the weekend so i had to get the Toyota. We shot for 40 hours in a 48 hour time frame and were only fueled by ... well ... momentum. Because as soon as things started slowing down, we fell like flies, dead tired.



Anyway, we shot a 90min experimental film which (fuck it, i am ruining the surprise for Monday - just a good heads up to those who read my blog) will be shown in sync with the classicl music. Each aria of the concerto had a frame thought up which pretty much rocks. It includes me almost falling out of a boat a few times, jumping out of trees, getting my head shaved half naked in a poppy field and many other insane ideas that our tired brains managed to duct tape together. The film will then be a full part of the show, and will be traveling around as a whole. Now all we have to do is sit tight and wait to become famous ... This is how things work, right?




Finance wise, student life is not yet over. I am broke beyond belief and am trying to figure out things ... University is gone and so is all the free equipment. This means investment as well as a great big hit in my already precariously balanced budget (strapping a ridiculously expensive camera to the side door of the Land Cruiser and driving around 60mph also put in a new light the idea of bankruptcy in case the camera fell off. No my bankruptcy however - but the faces of the people we overtook - worth every penny). But you need to spend money to make money and i suspect that this is the part where i have to spend ... That's it for now.

Good Weekend II

Well, i noticed i don't post that many images i take these days. Will do so when i am back in the UK and will have processed my large format images. For now, courtesy of Mr. Calin Jurca, images from Sunday with Ciprian Strugariu and myself at the wheels. Damage: the LR on the grill got taken off while Ciprian had a few issues with the alternator getting semi flooded. No worries, glue will fix everything.

Our Easter Activities

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.

Note to self

Master key - Lousy lock.

The Nemesis

I had the chance to ride in this impressive thing last week. There's an article about it, coming soon - the Bowler Nemesis and the story of it's owner. Possibly one of the most unexpected things i've ever heard - worth sharing. Tune in for news on that in a little while. Until then, the interview with our friend Manfred, who owns the 6x6 Land Rover and is currently in Cairo... Ah the life...

http://www.4x4offroads.com/this-fabulous-trek.html

What's next

In case anyone, for any reason, wondered what I'll be doing after i finish university, here it is. I'll be there. Counting rocks and figuring out what's next. This is the West Coast of Morocco, on a cliff just off Plage Blanche.



The picture was taken from this guy:

http://www.thisfabtrek.com/

Who's been travelling around since 2004. I found him while browsing around for a background picture of a certain Defender model, the 3 axle one, which the guy owns and explores Africa with.

While being distracted from procrastinating by the sudden need to have a new desktop picture, i started reading his site. Turns out he travelled to Romania, documented it pretty well and also wrote the names of the cities in both English (Romanian for the ones that don't need translating) and the old names like Sibiu/Hermannstadt. You can find it here. It's a pretty good read considering he drove from the Danube to the Hungarian border.

http://www.thisfabtrek.com/journey/europe/romania/20090813-bucharest.php

The home we missed

As time passes, i enjoy coming back home more and more. Coming home is something that brings me back from the slightly annoying scheduled life i have in the UK. As Mr. Pocock put it "Hey, i'm allowed to complain about this country because i am British". True, true, so very true. But still, bit of complaining is mandatory.

We're back home, with the large format camera, the Canon, the beyond brilliant Ilford HP5 large format slide films and with a lot of ideas. This'll be epic, i guess.

To begin with, Lavinia, Ramses and myself took up the challenge to participate in a humanitarian off road event. We thought that we'd sign up for the standard class race but when we got there, we reconsidered. I really wanted to run around and take pictures and Lavinia was walking Ramses all the time. Apart from that, the track wasn't that appealing so we decided we're just going to run around, stare at trucks, write an article and, when we get too cold, pack our stuff and head for shelter. Which we did. All in all it was a good day out, even though it kinda puts British cold weather into perspective...

WE are waiting for the next weekend really. If all works out right, we should help out with the Christmas Humanitarian Action organized by Ionut Macri in the area where the Transilvania Adventure Trophy takes place every year. It should be, as i picture it now, a lovely mix of soft off road, perfect scenery and excellent company. For now, here's what happened today:

The Ruins

This weekend, my friend Bogdan and i decided to go back to our roots. We've packed our bags,checked train times and we're off to track down the capital of the Dacic people, who inhabited these parts around two thousand years ago.

It'll be a change from the ordinary. No trucks, no fuel, no transport other than walking from the train station to the ruins. 50 kilometers over two days. To assist, Ionut was kind enough to provide us with detailed military maps of the area, just to have a look at the roads and such.

We hope it'll be fine and we'll be back with loads of stuff to tell you, as well as pictures and articles - perhaps even a new project that might be born over this period.

Mud, sweat and cheers

This weekend, like the one before, and like the one before that, we've gone to trek for the Transilvania Adventure Trophy. Broken bits and bobs, loads of fun and an extreme race for Open class and an impossible race for the Extreme class. We also stumbled upon a roman mine which we entered. Here's some pictures of the weekend.

Things we miss

Going too fast on the hair pin roads, up the mountain. 110 station wagon in a drift. Nelda gripping the cushion of my seat. Rock. Wheels jumping off the ground. Shift 3rd and pedal down. We're up. Nice view... Should just go home just about now

La Cellule de Crise - Paris Exhibition

our curator, exhausted, sleeps in the metro, on the way to La Generale en Manufacture.