This year was hardly any different, except some of the people couldn`t make it. And the nominees are: Anutza, Zoz, Radu, Gogo and Chircu.

For the rest of you I have a surprise. The people in the following photographs only took a glimpse at the LCD after the pictures were taken so I bet they have no recollection of the things you`re about to see. :hihi:

Behind door number 1: Pinky & Srj (Bonnie and Clyde) – or should I say – The Cepinschis

Behind door number 2: Marius

Behind door number 3: Jo

(Notice how Srj jumps from one door to another …)

Next off I really wanted to show you my “studio” but to better understand the proportions I had to give it human scale.

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Addendum:
As a side-note, in case you didn`t notice I gave a shot to a popular plug-in for the Wordpress platform: the one with the star ratings and the thumbs-up/down. Three days have passed and already I have some hilariously not so witty people thumbing down recent posts and 1 starring everything in their path. "Not so witty" (not to be too harsh) because as long as you`re not using a proxy or **** (classified info geeks like me happen to know), I can track you down and send 30 pizzas to your doorstep every day for the rest of your life or until you move to another country. They will write about you in the local paper and the Guinness Book of FAIL!

Don`t hate the player, hate the game! Don`t abuse the rating system.

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Still posting stuff from last year...

Just a few more pictures to show and I can fully be in the present. Today I`m going to show off two pictures of Diana, a good friend of mine who was supposed to shake off the camera shyness by now ... but that hasn`t happened yet. I`ll blame that on the cold. I have some pictures of her skin that will make a chicken look photoshoped.

I can barely wait for the summer... No I`m not talking about her in lingerie, I`m taking about my ass in the States!

Le`see, the next entry`s pictures are either Jo`s or Tode`s. Decisions ... decisions.

Pink, Srj ... hold on just a little longer. They`r coming! Slow ... but dangerously hilarious.

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I`m writing this entry hoping that it will cheer everybody up including yours truly. The past two weeks have been like Purgatory and Hell. The worst part is that "it ain`t over yet". The good part is: "only two more weeks to go".

I`ve been shooting to much with my Leica in the past 5 months. And by shooting I mean: "not using my digital counterpart that often". It was about time to use it again `cause the camera hardly got any use in the past two months.

So, Dec 17th, school, drawing exam. Everybody was tired and no one wanted to be there, especially for an exam. I guess they were all dreaming about snowboards and show-ball fights, Christmas and presents, food and sleep. Never forget food and sleep!

But I took their pictures anyway:

I won`t write their name, `cause it`s not that important for you.

Click the pictures for the slightly larger version.

Most of all, enjoy, and share with your family and friends. I`ll take some more on the next occasion.

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Teach me tonight - Roots

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This concert took place at the Romanian Cultural Institute and was part of Harry Tavitian`s Teach me Tonight series, and had the sole purpose of enlightening the audience with a little bit of jazz and blues history.
Although Harry talked about the roots of blues for about 15-20min at the beginning, I`m glad he did `cause I learned some new things. Some got bored pretty fast and even shouted "Let`s get on with the music..." but clearly the concert was not for them.

Harry had two guest players Vali "Sir Blues" Racila (slide guitar, delta blues) and Marcian Petrescu (harmonica) and they were both amazing.

I actually know Vali Racila for almost 11 years now. He used to come to my home town (Bacau) collaborating with the FSC (a non-profit organization created to support the people in need). And through common friends he got to know my father, who later brought me to Vali`s "friends-only" 1h concerts at a cup of tea. I remember one day he brought me two CD`s. The first one was an Emerson, Lake and Palmer album (can`t remember precisely the name) and the other one was Buddy Guy and Junior Well Live in Chicago (1993). I listened to them both and I chose to follow the Buddy Guy way. Since then I`m a blues fan, and in 2007 when I was in Chicago, I met him at his bar. I ran and bought the exact album (The 1993 Chicago concert) and had him sign it. Only God knows were`s that album now, but I sure have the pictures to remember about it.
But I digress. Since then I tried to be at all of Vali`s concerts. Missed a few.

Marcian Petrescu is one of the best Romanian harmonica players. I actually wanted to start studying harmonica with him but I never found the time. He is the lead singer of "Trenul de Noapte" (Midnight Train) band and had the pleasure of opening  Sugar Blue`s Romanian tour concerts, last year.

The whole performance ended just under 2.5h and it was brilliant. The only spice missing from all these ingredients was "more Harry at the piano", I mean, it was great, but you just can`t have enough piano.

More info about the event @ Harry Tavitian`s Blog -> Here and here
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Alex Galmeanu`s "Contact Lenses" Photography Exhibition

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I don`t want to say bad things about the expo `cause he might kick my ass, but I just can`t resist:

• the space was to small thus overcrowded.
• most of the pictures were wonderful, but a few of them ... "what was he thinkin` showing these next to the really good ones?"  (this is my opinion and does not reflect a majority)

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Late ride home

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I snapped this one waiting for the metro one night. Dristor station 11:00 PM.

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-basically you take your camera and use it to put a smile on someones face. Take their picture, print it and deliver it. No strings attached.

Out of everybody Cosmin moved me the most.

• He`s a single child.
• He thinks he can play basketball.
• He said he played in his high-school`s team as a pivot.
• He said he had an accident and can`t play anymore.
• When the cellphone dropped from his jacket, he almost freaked out. I asked him why and he replayed "This phone was my mom`s and she game it to me as a present for my 18th birthday. I must not break it"
• He doesn`t really understand the concept of guarding an opponent or dribbling. He just likes to shoot hoops.
• His friends call him "Smecheru`" (I`m having a hard time translating this in English) or "Sageata" (as in Arrow).

These ar just quick facts. I played some basketball with him (mostly as his ball retriever). Stayed there on the court for about 1h. after 25min a kid came by with his grand`ma to play football at the other end of the playground. Boy, that kid missed the goal from 3ft away, but when he hit the ball in our direction, he struck Cosmin in the back of the head from more than 20ft. That very moment I wanted to be Kyle and score a home-run with that kid.

When I got there I just wanted to shoot some hoops. When I left, I had a story and a new friend.

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We set up a meeting to find out more about the project and meet the model, but the main thing for me was "what type of light will there be available?". Once there I noticed the tight space I had to work in and the fluorescent tubes overhead (there was enough window light to get some nice shots for some sort of beauty contest but it was not the case here)

1. I had to take 1-2 good pictures of every service the salon had to offer.
2. To do that I had to rearrange the furniture a bit. (I hope Monica, the owner, wasn`t too upset about that. They offer almost every imaginable service and it`s not their fault the gear takes so much space).
3. I had to refrain from using wides or ultra-wides. I managed to get most of the shots using a 50mm lens @ f/1.4-2.8.
4. The tricky part was to get the green light of the fluorescent lamps to be white again. That you can do in two ways:
   • you either get some really large sheets of green gel and cover all the lights in that particular space, or:
   • you gel your lights (in this case 3 x Nikon SB800) with half-cut green gels and switch you camera`s WB to fluorescent.
5. The lighting solution for this was 1x SB-800 in a large umbrella on a stand as the main light, and 2x SB-800 left and right nuking the walls and ceiling @ half-power (creating some sort of a product photography tent from the inside). These were fired remotely with one SB-900 on the camera. I wish I had 2 more lights for some accents but for this one, it`s good enough.

The picked 25-30 pictures will go on the salon`s future (face-lifted) website. (the one active right now is @ this address)

Iulia was wonderful to work with, and although it was early in the morning for both of us we managed to be in sync for the whole session. We were out of there in just under 3 hours.

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These are all resizes to fit 1200px on the long side (that means that you can click on them for a slightly bigger version).

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Out of ~900 pictures (not counting the panoramas and the HDRs) I chose to show you 25, but there were ~60-70 pictures selected to tell the story.

I can`t post the remaining 40+ pictures but I think you can handle 10 more. (actually 9 decent ones and a dud!)

Enjoy.

(P.S. I`m trying as hard as I can to make room in my schedule to stitch those panoramas I`m blabbering about so "keep your pants on"!)

And this is how we roll ... when we`re outside the country.

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