I mixed some of the films and I`m to lazy to fix that now. This roll was supposed to go before the one with Cosmin.
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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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I dedicated 12/12/2009  to the Help Portrait movement.

-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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Kodak TRI-X
ASA 400 @ 1600
Processed in Rodinal 1:25 / 12min
Scan: Canon CanoScan 4400f

The one with the fashion show…

The winter ski collection by Stephan Pelger (first picture) for Vuarnet.

And the bus-stop…

This bus-stop is point A in my A-B trip from the University to the warmth of the couch. And yes, that`s everyday Bucharest traffic at his best, right there!

And my friends…

Three of my colleagues and in the next picture you can see that night`s game party.

And the recording studio.

(left to right) Smiley and two of his friends in his recording studio.

First roll – Kodak TRI-X

27th of September

Chez Marie

Oktoberfest

Second Roll – Rollei Retro 400s @ ASA3200

27-28th of September

El Comandante

The Studio

City Grill

5th of October

Back at the Crib

Rollei Retro
ASA 400
6 out of 36 frames
Processed in Rodinal 1:50 / 12min
Scan: Canon CanoScan 4400f

This is one of those films that stays in the camera for weeks and you can`t really make it a “one subject roll”. So I chose 6 pictures 5 of them taken in the studio where Alexandra Sandu is taking photos for the Daydreamers project and the first one is taken in the old part of Bucharest (on the way to the studio).

The guy in the 2nd and 5th picture is the photographer Alexandru Matusciac.

Kodak TRI-X
ASA 400
Processed in Ilfosol 12min (@mini-lab) – and they did a terrible job
Scan: Canon CanoScan 4400f

2009.08.23 – The (Romanian) Wedding Day

I wrote (Romanian) `cause they got married in The Netherlands prior to this event. Coen is Dutch and Andreea … well you guessed – Romanian.
They decided that a wedding done by our customs will be a good thing.

The day before the wedding Coen got baptized – Ioan so that the holly matrimony could take place in one of our churches.

There are many things to tell but I`m hoping the pictures will cover that.

And a few from our D90… (shot either by me or by Ioana)

I hope you liked the pictures and enjoyed the song. (yes, there`s a song at the beginning of this entry)

And, with almost 11 days overdue, I present to you the Netherlands entry.

We took the Thalys train from Paris with the destination: Rotterdam. “Lucky” for us, they were working on the railroads those days so we hopped of at Utrecht, then we took a train straight to Hague. `Cause that`s were Pinka and Srj are living now. You`ll see pictures of their neighborhood at the end. And yes … they live in a red MVRDV house.

In the 5 days remaining of our trip we visited Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft and Hague. (if I forgot something, just let me know)

Given the fact that I`m not in a “writing allot of stuff” mood I`ll let you enjoy the pictures.

Don`t be shy and write a few words yourself … and yes, you can send this link to other people. )

P.S. The song is Red House played by Jimi Hendrix. I wanted to put another song but I can`t really get a hold of it so this one is just as good. Mainly because we stayed at our friends in a red house in Hague and as a side reason: it`s 12 bar blues and Razvan is trying to get the hang of it right now. Bro, I could only wish I could play 10% of what is Jimi doing by the time you get it together, but you`re getting it wright faster than I can learn how to improv…

After almost “4 days overdue” according to my “To do” software, I get to show you the 2nd part of our summer trip – Normandy.

And to be precise: we stayed in the west part of it.

This blog-entry will be split into seven parts because it was the simplest way for me to manage my pictures. In some places we went more than once so I tried to keep the timeline in the order of “1st time only”.

1. Flamanville – Hameau Bonemains
2. Ile Mont-Saint-Michel
3. Cherbourg
4. Cap de la Hague
5. Clairefontaine
6. Sciotot
7. Omaha Beach, the Museum / Cemetery

(Today I found out how to use “anchors” in a blog-post but unfortunately they interfere with my “return to top button” so as much as I tried to get the titles to send you to a specific part of the entry … I couldn`t do it. Maybe some day I`ll figure this one out, but for now … I`ll leave it as it is.)

1. Flamanville – Hameau Bonemais

From Paris we took the train to Cherbourg (the main city in the area), and from there we were picked-up by Mihai and taken to Hameau Bonemais, a little town next to Flamanville.

On the map to your right I`ve marked the house were we stayed and further down the page you`ll see a picture of it. From here we went every day to a new place. This area doesn`t have a beach; it`s mostly a cliff-side part of land but fortunately it is flanked by two wonderful sandy beaches Sciotot and Clairefontaine.

In this part of the world the weather changes rapidly and we had to make the best of every ray of sunshine – thus one day we ended on the beach in our underwear and someone went home (by car) and returned with our swimsuits.

In this part of the world we felt like we traveled back in time. After 10PM all the lights in the town are turned off and it`s pitch black. The houses are all made of stone and the hedges are 2-3m high. This is the greenest grass I`ve ever seen. It`s like God grabbed the saturation slider and pushed it out of the frame.

A truly wonderful place for relaxation after 5 days of Paris…

2. Ile Mont-Saint-Michel

Ile Mont-Saint-Michel is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country’s north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches.

Mont-Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. Thus the distance between the shore and the south coast of Mont-Saint-Michel has decreased. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount.
At low tide surrounded by mud flats – seen from the air

On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €164 million project (Projet Mont-Saint-Michel) to build a hydraulic dam using the waters of the river Couesnon and of tides that will help remove the accumulated silt deposited by the uprising tides, and to make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. It is expected to be completed by 2012.
The construction of the dam is now complete (it was inaugurated in 2009), but the project also includes the destruction of the causeway that was built on top of the small land bridge and enlarged, to join the island to the continent, but also used as a parking for visitors. It will be replaced by an elevated light bridge, under which the waters will flow more freely, and that will improve the efficiency of the now operational dam, and the construction of another parking on the continent. Visitors will have to use small shuttles to cross the future bridge which will be still open to walking people and unmotorized cycles.

3. Cherbourg

The Cotentin was in fact the first territory conquered by the men from the North, the Vikings. For these sea people, it was logical that Cherbourg should become a port.

During the Seven Years’ War the town was briefly occupied by a British force in the Raid on Cherbourg in 1758. The British destroyed military buildings and warehouses before departing.

In the Napoleonic era the harbour was fortified to prevent British naval incursions. Underwater obstructions were sunk at intervals across the harbour entrance, and then progressively replaced with piles of masonried rubble. Works began in 1784 and were not concluded until 1850, long after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

On July 31, 1909, tsar Nicholas II and French president Armand Fallières met officially in Cherbourg to reinforce the Franco-Russian Alliance. Cherbourg was the first stop of RMS Titanic after it left Southampton, England. On 19 June 1864, the naval engagement between USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama took place off Cherbourg. The Battle of Cherbourg, fought in June 1944 following the Normandy Invasion, ended with the capture of the city on 30 June.

We visited the SeaWorld Aquarium just because it`s the only place in the world where you can see the insides of a nuclear submarine, in this case “Le Formidable” (or in american slang “The Awesome”).

4. Cap de la Hague

La Hague is a region on the tip of the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, France.
This is the west most part of Normandy.

5. Clairefontaine

6. Sciotot

7. Omaha Beach, the Museum / Cemetery

On June 8, 1944, the U.S. First Army established the temporary cemetery, the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.

Like all other overseas American cemeteries in France for World War I and II, France has granted the United States a special, perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery, free of any charge or any tax. This cemetery is managed by the American government, under Congressional acts that provide yearly financial support for maintaining them, with most military and civil personnel employed abroad. The U.S. flag flies over these granted soils.

The cemetery is located on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel. It covers 70 ha, and contains the remains of 9,387 American military dead, most of whom were killed during the invasion of Normandy and ensuing military operations in World War II. Included are graves of Army Air Force crews shot down over France as early as 1942.

(source: Wikipedia)

Thank you for the patience of scrolling the entire entry. It took me almost all day to put together. I had some coding problems but everything is ok now.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the song (Mo’horizons – So Ma Guisee). Hopefully I`ll have the Netherlands entry done by the end of the week. From there on the entries are already done so it shouldn`t take to much time to post them.

As I devoted more and more time to this hobby of mine I started to wonder “What advices do the best photographers in the world have for us … puny mortals?” and I came across many good ideas but only two of them stuck to me:

1. Wear good shoes!
2. Don`t process your pictures immediately after you shot your assignment.

I`ll will talk just a little bit about the 2nd one.

The whole idea is based on the fact that 2-3 days after the assignment you`re still attached emotionally of your pictures. Thus, the more you let them sit unattended, the more distant you become of them. And by the time you decide to work on them you`ll analyze them with more critique … as if they were not your pictures in the first place. So picking the favorites and processing only those should be an easier task to do and with better results. Some of the early photographers used to let the film rolls stay in the fridge up to 6 months before they got developed, but in this fast world we`re living in we`re lucky if we can let them sit over the weekend.

I tried the “process later” approach and everybody got mad at me because I wouldn`t give my friends the summer / party / night out pictures the next day so they can upload them on Hi5 / Facebook / personal shrine page somewhere on the Internet. Eventually they got used to it and now I don`t have to worry about that anymore.

The pictures I`m about to show you are shot this august in Paris (and in the future blog posts: Normandy and bits and pieces of Netherlands)

This year 15 days of summer found us in Paris, Normandy and the Netherlands (5 days each).

There`s a first time for everything … this was my first time in Paris. Beautiful city but it stinks (literally) and it`s expensive. Were not your average “must see everything” tourists.  We don`t step inside every stupid museum we see marked on the map. We`re the kind of travelers that get to know a city by keeping our asses outdoor and taking time just watching the ordinary people doing ordinary stuff.

No, we`re not the kind of “Me Want FOOD!” hill-billies but the “sitting and enjoying a glass of wine here and a glass of wine there” is what I like the most.

But enough about that.

This year Ioana`s parents (or for better understanding: my {somewhere in the future} parents-in-law) celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. I know what you`re thinking: free booze! And you`re right! The ceremony took place at a Orthodox Church in the Latin part of town and it was simple and beautiful.

Mihai Eminescu - Leica 10 - Rollei Retro 400s

I will split the remaining 4 days into 4 groups: Museums, Defance, Street View and Eiffel Tower.

1. Museums

• Musee d`Orsay – Built in a old train station

Musee d`Orsay - Leica 13 - Rollei Retro 400s

2. Defance

Grande Arche de la Fraternité

Arc de Triomphe

9 Frames

10 Frames

11 Frames

360 of Defance Main Square - 25 Frames

3. Street View

1. Digital stuff that I need to get out of the way…

2. Leica in chronological order…

Leica – 10

Leica – 11

Leica – 12

The first of the following pictures is shot on film and the other seven were captured with the Nikon D90. This guy was awesome!

Aaaand back to Leica and film…

Leica – 13

4. Eiffel Tower

The tower in pictures…



And for the next part … we had to stay in line.

And after God knows how many steps …

And a few with the rangefinder…

Overall I liked Paris but I don`t consider it to be a place to move to. It`s not even close to my top three places to live in.

This entry took me 4h:56min to write from 0% to 100%, that means from RAW pictures and no idea about the entry to what you have before your eyes so don`t hate me if I don`t hurry up with the Normandy entry.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did traveling this summer. Comments are appreciated… this way I`ll know my work was not in vain.

More tk.

Kodak TRI-X
ASA 400
13 out of 36 frames
Processed in Rodinal 1:100 / 1h stand
Scan: Canon CanoScan 4400f

Are you bored yet?
This is the 9th roll of film shot with the M6 (like you haven`t figured that out already).
Being a “one week roll” (as in: a bunch of pictures that don`t relate) I don`t have much to say about the 36 frames as a whole, so I`ll just inform you about these specific pictures.

First off, a meeting with Alexunu and Arnold in downtown Bucharest.

One of the following days we went to see Stefan (yup … the little guy in the 2nd and 3rd pictures). He was carefully guarded the whole time by Ulise … the family dog.

A few days later (July 18th, to be precise) I took part in “Scott Kelby`s 2nd Annual Photowalk” (a short name for a bunch of people with their photogear walking the streets of Bucharest up and down in the search for the perfect picture. I don`t want to break the bubble, but honestly … this city is far from being a good place for street photography.) I had my Leica M9 M6 and a bunch of film rolls. I shot around 10-12 frames all day (that means … 3h of Official Photowalk). You get to see four of them, for the remaining 6, send Santa a letter.

And the we hauled-ass to the seaside. (the first picture is Anghel Saligny`s bridge over The Danube river)

I`m off to Lisbon!

More tk.

(the next posts; in a week or so. Paris, Normandy and The Netherlands – and yes … I shot color film and digital stuff )