Year: 2011

Paștele Cailor at Tîrgoviște

I was familiar with the expression “Paștele Cailor”, meaning “Horse’s Easter”, as a date when nothing will happen (as in, for example, I will such Bill Gates dick at Horses Easter) and also knew a couple of explanations for it. This year I learned another one in a photography trip with Orasul.ro: is a festivity of the small Bulgarian community in the City of Tîrgoviște, happening after the winter when the horsed are taken out for the first time. It is also called “Tudorița”.

So together with a bunch of other photographers I attended the event this year, which, of course was pretty much about horses:

pastele cailor/tudorita pastele cailor/tudorita

And it was also about the people in that Bulgarian community and their traditions:
pastele cailor/tudorita pastele cailor/tudorita

And, as we are in Balkans, it was also about food (don’t remember the name of those small breads decorated with pepper seeds):
pastele cailor/tudorita pastele cailor/tudorita

And of course it was about contests, to see who has the best horses and who is the best driver:
pastele cailor/tudorita pastele cailor/tudorita

And it was a lot about local divas, sitting and smiling in the carts, in their pretty and colorful costumes, for all of us to admire:
pastele cailor/tudorita pastele cailor/tudorita

And of course it was a festivity for the kids to enjoy (“give me the camera to take a picture to daddy” said the little princess):
pastele cailor/tudorita pastele cailor/tudorita

And not last, it was a festivity for us, the photographers, who were there in great numbers trying to capture everything:
pastele cailor/tudorita pastele cailor/tudorita

And on top of all, it was a really beautiful hot and sunny spring day, a pleasure to be outside.

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Here comes the rain again

This endless rain is sickening, the lack of sun is ruining all the expected beauty of the spring and photography plans, I don’t know mow much of it I can take any more… fortunately Mino, a brave soul dared to stick it into rain’s face and go for an outdoors photo session

rain

Umbrellas, the last flowers of the spring, that was what we played with before getting to wet:
rain rain

And for the finale, we find an empty place (who’s in the park in a rainy spring evening?), took cover from the rain and played a bit more:
rain rain

I think she sacrificed a bit on the art’s altar, and didn’t recovered fully from the cold caught in this rain. Get well Mino!

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Life in Black and White, or How To Make It Simple

Felt sometime the life is to complex, to many details and aspects making you hard to take a decision? Time me teach a lesson: let’s start with whatever photo (this particular one is about the fight of good and evil, noble Jedis and scary villains with some cutesy in between, but to each his own) and open it in your favorite image editor (I opening it with GIMP, since it is my favorite):


You know how they say the life is about shades of gray? Let’s do that, trying to simplify it:

I don’t know what you think, but for me it seems still complex:

So the next step is to apply another tool, called Thresohld:

This is a much simpler life, no shades, only black and white:

Adjusting a couple of sliders we can move it more to the lightness:

Or to the darkness, according to each one’s taste and view of life:

See now, the outlook of the life around is so much clearer so a decision making become so much easier! Do it and do not look back. Easy solution to hard problems.

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ID

Hello, here I am 🙂

code

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Two sides of winter

Archway over time, two sides, evolution, change, progress… still winter.

trees in winter

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Mărțișoare at the subway. Or me on the border of hypocrisy

I did it again, despite being at times very vocal against this tradition, I joined Orasul.ro for a Mărțisor photo event at the Uniri subway station. Take it as a photojournalism exercise.

martisoare

People used the opportunity to shoot the event, the people around and the subway station overall (normally you are not allowed to shoot there).
martisoare

And of course to have some fun – that is, or should be, the purpose of any community action.
martisoare

If you don’t know, the Mărțișor tradition suppose the men give to the women some trinkets put on a red and white string, so that was our pretense. Most of them smiled and accepted, while some avoided us, suspecting we just try to hit on them.
martisoare

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Published…. Expo Ideal Mariaj 2011

A few of my photos from the Expo Ideal Mariaj wedding fair in January 2011 are published on their website, complete with the URL of this blog 🙂 6 photos in total, covering the fair floor and presentations, a bit of photojournalism:

ideal mariaj 2011

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Armed and dangerous

Now that the lost boy returned and a new one joined the team, I think my arsenal is complete for a while (not that I don’t want more toys, of course I could use a few more):

arsenal

I don’t have the habit of personalizing my toys with names, as many other do, but the other day I had the idea for some cool (I think) names and, what the heck? Let me introduce the boys: The Sniper, The Normalizer, The Stretcher, The Prettifier, The Jack and The Tumpet. Their ranks changed a bit: The Jack, which used to be the protagonist, moved as the backup and The Trumpet was relegated from backup to the backup of the backup. Now the stars are The Stretcher and The Sniper.
arsenal

Still, The Sniper has to prove itself in a real battle, looking for opportunities… I am armed and dangerous!

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The return of the lost boy

There is a story of the boy that was lost in the forest and now he has returned: my (not so) old Tamron lens, which was with me for tens of thousands of photos, one day got on its knees, with errors and errors and errors, so I had to bring it back to the mothership for repairs. It took over half a year, but now he is with me again and appearing to work:

tamron

A casualty is its tiny aperture operating engine, which was the very first thing they replaced… not sure how much a necessity it was, since the problem persisted after the replacement (the engine is dead now) and the problem was solved in the end many months ago with a software update (you knew a camera lens has its own motherboard with its own operating system?)
aperture engine

Now I am not that angry with F64 and still doing business with them, they promoted me as a golden client based on my past purchases… not sure if due to this status or the massive delay, but the repairing came with a few perks.
golden

Sure, there are bad news for the lost-and-returned boy: he’s not any more the golden boy, a new generation replaced it and now he’s a backup, But still has a future in front of him.

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Valentine’s Day

valentine

…choke on it!

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Wide in Brussels

Over the week-end I was in Brussels for the FOSDEM conference, as part of the Fedora team, the perfect opportunity to take my wide lens with me and take a lot of travel photos.

So of course there were building, cathedrals, monuments and so:

brussels

And there were cool stores, anime, comic books and so forth:
brussels

And plenty of good Belgian beer, at Delirium and not only:
brussels

And there was specific food:
brussels

Of course the chocolate was not missing, but this time was no chocolate:
brussels

Many more photos are dumped in a quickly made gallery.

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No chocolate

no comment

no chocolate

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Making girls’ lengs longer since… November 2010

I am still crazy a about my new ultra-wide lens, bought last November, using it even when is not the case, is a very nice toy… and probably ruining a lot of shots in the process 😀 One not unwanted effects of the perspective deform produced by it is that… it makes the girls legs longer. A lot longer. Of course, if used properly…

legslegslegslegslegslegslegslegslegslegslegslegs

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Providing shiny since… June 2008

The Romanian word for shine is luciu, so for shiny things what else can I show better than Luciu sisters’ cleavages? …from a wedding dresses fashion parade offered by Sabres Fashion House.

luciu luciu
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Fruit bonanza? Delicious!

The girls from Trupa Vogue preparing for a fruit dance (samba). It looks delicious, right? The fruits, of course! But don’t try to eat them, behave!

vogue fruits vogue fruits
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