Hi folks,

Every year (for the past 7-8 years now) the 1st of May (work holiday – without actual work) would find us on the beach in Vama Veche. But not this year. Too many people go there now so we tried to avoid traffic, staying in line for food, crowds etc… and we gathered in Herastrau park in Bucharest for a “Balloons and Kites Fest”.

Everyone had “balloon making devices”; some rudimentary … some even had “balloon guns”.

And as you can see at the beginning of this entry, to capture such moments you need the best vantage point. Up there, yours truly and  Alexunu. (And if you want to see it through her eyes, just follow the jump to her blog).

I had only my Leica and the Supersampler so my “deviations” will take a while until they see the daylight. Pictures here were taken with Jo`s D90 and the 50mm f/1.4 AF-S. The boke looks funky. (not the best in the word, if you ask me…)

Afterward we went to Musi`s new (unfurnished) home for the Rainbow Party. (you had to wear just one color) and as you can see most of them succeeded in doing so. (Caution! Big picture ahead! 2400px @ ~500kb)

Hello again,

I guess you`re wondering what`s got into me with this fast followup entry… Searching through the latest photographs I came across one with a cat and I realized again how much I love furry animals. But…

The biggest problem for me is that Jo is allergic to cats. Her eyes start swelling up just like in the cartoons and there`s no anti-allergic in the world to prevent that from happening. So, when I see a cat I immediately feel the need to pet it and scratch it behind the ears.

Disclosure: I like dogs even more (heck I even have one back home in Bacau) but I don`t like the little ones that you can keep in the apartment; for me a dog has to have at least 70punds (35kg). You`ll see at the end a picture of my dog, a Romanian Shepard Dog. Now that`s a dog … but not for the Bucharest / apartment lifestyle we`re living right now.

But enough chit-chat, `cause you`re here for the pictures:

And to further proof what I wrote above:

And Elly, my trusted companion. She`s almost 7 years old (about 50 in human years) and 90 pounds (45kg). She sheds 3 garbage bags full of hair in the springtime.

See yah!

Hi folks,

Trying to keep up with the university`s never-ending projects I spend less and less time taking photos. Post-processing is just a beautiful dream. I`ve had 2 weeks of vacation for the Easter holidays and, frankly, I have no clue when they got by.

I spent them in my hometown eating, sleeping and playing Modern Warfare 2 (`cause my laptop has become sluggish and my formed desktop is still keeping up with technology). Doing all these things without leaving the comfy chair (yep … I fell asleep @ the computer), I didn`t have much time for photos. But I`ll show you 1-2 pictures just to keep you posted.

So, your`s truly, my beautiful Jo, CS and Partagas Presidentes.

This man came at the Church @12:00 to listen to the ceremony, but he was the only one without the candle. He caught my eye.

And to top things off, I`m going to post a picture of a good old friend (with whom I get together 2 times/year). She will hate me for that, but she will get over it, hopefully. In case you`re wondering, her boyfriend is giving her a hard time.

I have some pictures from an assignment for the “gypsies should get to college too” movement and some from a wedding that took place last weekend but I can`t find the time sort them… so it might take a while.

Take care everybody.

Hi guys and gals! Long time no see.

I was thinking of kicking Spring off with some nuttier pictures.

About a week ago, Ioana and myself threw a party and to spice things up a little bit I told everybody I was going to take some pictures `cause I had a funky background idea spinning outta control between my ears. To make things more interesting Ioana came up with the idea of a theme party. One thing led to another and we got ourselves a Alice in Wonderland Party (mostly because it was the movie premiere).

The people in charge, your`s truly and my lovely Jo.

And few of the brave ones that stood before my camera:

I wish ALL the people invited could have made it to the party, but unfortunately 3 of them had important stuff to get done before the week-end. I stored the background so I can use it again when we all gather for the Easter Holidays so some of you, close friends, that wish / need to have such kind of pictures of yourself … i`ll just say: it can be done!

I hope I`ll find the time to keep the blog updated.

Until the next time,

Take care everybody!

No sooner had I finished Cuba`s session, when my friends started to ring the doorbell. Every year we meet at my nomad studio in my hometown, 2-3 days before the New Year`s Eve, we have some drinks (mostly that year`s crops, `cause we like wine), tell some stories, play guitar and … most of all … take allot of pictures.

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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And the last of the individual winter sessions was reserved for my lovely Jo. She insisted on being photographed while wearing the New Year`s Eve clothes. I must say … she had a very good idea; mostly because she never got to wear that outfit `cause everybody else had everyday clothes on … so she did the same thing.

Many of you will say that I used to much flash. I beg to differ. I`d say two more lights would have been a blessing…

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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One day I get a call from a friend asking me if I was available for a 3h shooting at a beauty salon. I said yes, even though I had no idea of the conditions I was walking in on.

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 website.

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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