Yesterday, 22 December 2009 it was the 20 years anniversary of what we like to call the “revolution”, the fall of the communist dictatorship in Romania, which was violent: over 1000 people died, some fighting for freedom, some on duty, some by accident and some due to stupidity.

The celebration was lame and uneventful, proving once again we are ready to easily trade the freedom for a bit or promised “tranquillity”: a solemn session on the parliament where nobody was interested (they have those every year), some documentaries and talk shows on TV and that was about all.

Passing trough the city center, I noticed something that fired my interest: in the passage below Piața Universității (the square where many people died – tanks, guns – it much worse than Tienanmen) they had a photo gallery, open for all the people walking: photos from the last days of the dictatorship, from the revolution days and from the aftermath.

On one hand, I was jealous as a photographer, those are times when you can capture the reality and even a snapshot can become “gold” from an artistic point of view. On the other hand, people died and you don’t want people to die only to have subjects for your photos.

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