ABOUT
We are sucked in by social media, internet and smartphones. We forgot how a real analogue photography looks or smells like and how many emotions we can live, how many memories we can recall from a physical photograph, now we just poses huge stocks of digital memories, which may disappear in the blink of an eye. I want to bring back the instant analogue photography into the art scene. It’s always a good idea to go back where it all (almost) started.
I want to make people understand that we still need analogue photography, maybe now more than ever. Everyone can own a digital camera and take pictures. But the beauty of analogue photography is that it gets you closer to the material, the real and palpable, in the face of the illusionary pixels. We shouldn't fade in technology, we shouldn't lose our humanity, I think it's our duty to take care of that. I think analogue photography is a part of that
I took those photographs because I felt like I need to document those people in a beautiful way, and that was to use my two Polaroid Cameras and try to do some magic with them.
It’s more a personal project as well because I’m a very shy person and an introvert even though I choose to have a job that involves lots of people and basically strangers where you have to get to know them. So in a way it helped me personally to build up my confidence in talking with people outside my social circle and just to find out that at a level we can relate even though we never spoken in real life. I’ve chosen people from my social media account and just popped the question to them.
The project it's formed of 26 black and white analog portraits made with two Polaroid cameras ( Polaroid 600 Spirit Camera and a Polaroid 636 Close-up ). I chose to make this portraits in b&w analog photographs because I think that when you want to intensify the feelings and emotions you can feel by looking at a photograph it's by being in a black and white portrait. I chose the analog/instant method because I could document the life and stories of people I've met and get to know them a little bit more than just a facebook/instagram post.
The project was exhibited at Camden Image Gallery, London in July 2017 , it was exhibited at BalKaniK Festival Bucharest, Romania, in September 2017 and at IN/OUT Transylvania Photo Festival, Cluj-Napoca, Romania in October 2017.
Andreea Andrei
.
Man with a balloon
I choose to photograph my dad as a child missing his childhood memories.
Ana-Maria Onea, friend and muse
"To describe myself to people who don’t know me is difficult considering the fact that I would highlight only certain aspects about me, those which would make me be seen in a certain way. A better description of mine could be done by the people who know me. All I can say about myself is that I’ve learned that there are times in life when you lose and it might seem the end of the world, but it isn’t. In three words: life goes on. Sometimes I wish I was thirty-something with my life figured out, and sometimes I wish I was three with my whole life ahead of me and not a care in the world. It was by chance that this photo of mine was taken in a mirror, but ironically this was probably the best way to describe myself:once in a while when I look into the mirror I get the feeling that I’m looking to a stranger."
Carmen Casiuc, art history graduate
''There's no monument of words for a skin carrying the world's dreams.''
Claudiu Popescu, photographer
I asked Claudiu what he would choose as a text:
Ioana Pelehatai, journalist at Scena9, Bucharest, Romania
"Unphotographable”.
"This was me, I thought, all throughout the years that I changed what my body looked like, dated and befriended photographers, and nursed my chronically low self-esteem in therapy. Meanwhile, friends kept telling me to relax. Stop worrying. You look good. But every time a shutter clicked around me or at me, I cringed. I couldn’t look at the photo. I knew the voice in my head that said, “This will look nothing like you. You look so awkward.” I knew to try and ignore, wait it out. I mistook it for self-deprecation. Eventually, it would subside and I’d talk myself into looking—at someone who was me, but not quite. When Mihaela asked to take the picture, two hours into our friendly chat, I stopped trying to argue with the voice. I heard it was telling me to smile. Trust. That’s what it had been saying all along."
Irina Gache, visual artist
"I always felt like Alice in Wonderland or in the looking glass looking for either an escape either an entrance. I don’t really know how to describe myself, but I feel like often like an overload of dreamer, analytical rationalist, amused trickster and an avid researcher into hidden things. I photograph for the stillness of emotions and ideas that are very fast paced in myself and the way I perceive them from outside and from others."
Alexandra Crisbasan, visual artist
"I use creation or creative expression to escape the prison of conformism, what is your weapon of choice,your moment of disobedience?"
Adi Bulboaca & Irina Artenii, photographer and dramatic art student
"I was born in the summer of 1988 and sixteen years later I started taking photos. In all the cities I go, I always know where to find two things - the theater and the train stations. I seek to capture the patina in all the environments I interact with, because I believe that the goal of photography is that of encapsulating time. Time passes over objects, and it's the more or less subtle trail it leaves behind that interests me with every frame. This spring, Irina and I started sharing the same Polaroid camera, a beautiful SX-70. We travel from here to there and capture both what we see or feel and ourselves in this ongoing project."
Razvan Tupa, poet
PAIN IS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
''A romanian body knows how to sidestep decisions it feels that in such cases it can no longer justify its comfortable suffering for this with your entire body you must stay here until it's very late you can be a keychain or a gummed sticker but one day the music of breathing will disappear all on its own or conversely my hands ready to receive silence like a sandwich I waited in the bus station until I was on the verge of tears the air had the freshness of new leaves I;d prepared everything; men had taken their places I just had to watch out for the arrowswift hordes pf evening they were debating what part of me should be devoured first they couldn't believe it when I arose with easy strides to take charge of matters in my native language as on a skateboard''
PS: Credit for Poem Translation goes to Adam J. Sorkin
Hikaru Masamiya , graphic designer and journalist based in Bali, Indonesia.
I photographed him in a cold day of February in Camden Town, London.
''
I’m Hikaru Masamiya, born and raised in Tokyo, Japan and now I live in your consciousness as you hear my voice in your head. Anyways… I started believing that all the negative effects are made by love, life is based on love, love can be anything. Jealousy, depression, fear, loneliness, those negative emotions are transformed from love like a tree from a seed. I realized how important to understand that those negative effects are coming from love... as wave is wave but waves are part of the ocean.''
Laura Ionescu, romanian activist
''In defending freedom, I become fearless. My t-shirt writes “My pussy, my choice” and I believe just that - my pose is a reaction to the pro-life movement in Romania, that took on the streets on a sunny Saturday in an attempt to ban abortion, the same Saturday in which I was invited to be part of this project.
Maya Angelou said it better:
“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.''
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.''
Women should have whatever they want at the meeting of their thighs.''