Category: photographer

Hipster Delivery

2012-06-19
bucharestcityphotophotographerphotojournalismRomaniastreetsummer
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Street Delivery is the biggest hipster event taking place in Bucharest and it takes place in the middle of June, the perfect moment for a hipster to show his true colors with the obligatory hat and scarf during an incredibly hot summer day. It has everything you expect from such an event, from “Salvati Rosia Montana” to graffiti and comics to cotton candy to and beer to workshops and to dubstep. Even a booth from the local Apple Computer distributor was there.

And since the Carturesti library chain thought is a good promotional opportunity, they, as organizer, held a photography contest from the event, so about half of the hipsters there had a camera, dreaming of taking “that” picture and winning the contest. So I took only a few pics.

street delivery
street delivery
street delivery
street delivery
street delivery

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My photos in Cancan (no license, no credit, no nothing)

2012-06-14
editorialFAILphotophotographerphotojournalismpublishedRomania
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Cancan is one of the most known local tabloids focusing on celebrities and such stuff (to judge its level, the article I am talking about here is about a Facebook fight between a dancer and the nephew of a rich guy) and I just discovered back this January they used a couple of my photos for an article, here’s a screen capture from their website:

cancan

Obviously, they had no legal right to post them, neither from the photographer (me), nor the model (Alicia), it looks like they just lifted the images from a Facebook album of mine (stupid them, they could have obtained better quality from the g+ equivalent album) (the model has also a copy, but she put on her profile only one of the two images used by the tabloid).

On the legal side, the photos on Facebook are just put there, so they are full protected by copyright, according with the Romanian law. On Picasaweb/Google Plus, where there is such an option, I have put them under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike, which still require an user (Cancan in this case) to credit the author and keep the license. Is true I did a mistake: forgot to add a watermark, which I do with images like this which are likely to be misuses, but the presence of a watermark was no influence on the law and copyright (copyright is applied by default) and the tabloid modified the crop anyway. They act like everything is online is free to use, which is false but used by other media outlets from the entire world.

So what I am doing next? Nothing, I won’t sue the tabloid (probably they expect that much, people to be busy with other things to sue them), but I will post the pictures here, for reference and for people to be able to see the original, compared with the tabloid editing. I do like to share content and I do it all the time, but under the rules I want, which means most of the time a Free license.

alicia
alicia

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Retro

2012-06-11
editorialphotophotographer
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I genuinely hate the way people damage their phone-taken photos with crappy effects made with Instagram, so last weekend when I took part in a photo hunt in the Cișmigiu Park under the “Retro” theme, I was really unhappy with the requirements: put your camera to shoot on sepia and gives the photos like that. Why I consciously damage my photos by permanently erasing the color information? But those were the rules…

We had 7 points we had to cover, all with pompous names, and in the end my team selected my pictures in 4 cases, they were as such: easy reading

retro

The tree from the water

retro

Crețulescu Alley panorama

retro

and Sun under the bridge

retro

The pictures weren’t that good, the team didn’t win anything, however in the end my team mate Laura won the special prize for the best picture (sorry, her picture for in the shadow of the lost time is not online at the time of this writing).

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Self service

2012-05-31
candideditorialphotophotographerportrait
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Calssara was one of the special guests at Otaku 2012 and she had a session talking about cosplay in her country, Germany. She told they never pay the photographers (as the photographers are the one needing to pay the models) and they prefer to learn and do the shooting and editing themselves, since after a 2 hours session, the photographer will give only 3 photos. It was not the time and place for me to try to intervene, telling how is a 2 hours session is a good thing if you get 10-15 good photos (publish worthy) and how bad photos are not useful for the model.
Actually I see this conflict: models pushing for all the photos (“I had a pretty smile in that one, does not matter my legs and arms are unflattering”), while the photographer refusing to put his name on pictures less than his intended level (any photo session, from any photographer, will produce some bad photos).
After all, Calssara do some decent pictures, so learning is always a good thing. Still, I think some people have to learn more about the TFCD concept.

cosplayer photographer

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The hard work of taking photos

2012-05-17
cleavageeroticgirlsNSFWpantyphotophotographersexyshow
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They may say photography is easy, all fancy and glamour, but taking pictures is art and also hard work: you have to keep your both hands on the camera, eyes sharp, focus correctly, frame right, take care of the light, click the buttons and so on. Not easy, trust me, I am a photographer.

har work photos
har work photos
har work photos
har work photos
har work photos
har work photos
har work photos
har work photos

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High-tech

2012-02-17
Indiaphotophotographerphotojournalismstreettravel
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Walking on the streets of Kolkata I saw this camera store. Had to take a pic and share with the world. Now I think I may go to F64 and search some stuff.

high-tech

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Lens uses protection. It is super effective

2012-01-23
editoriallearningphotographer
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Saturday we had snow (if the time allows, I will post some pictures later today). Sunday it got a bit warmer and we had sleet, a lot of the snow melted. Then last night was freezing cold. As a result, today morning everything was covered with a layer of shiny, slippery ice.

It happens and it happened to me: I slipped on the ice and felt directly on my butt. No problem, it is fat enough, I got no damage, but my photo backpack was obviously on my back. With one camera and an extra lens inside. Both took a frontal hit. Net result: the protection/UV filters are broken in tiny pieces, the real glass looks intact. After a frugal testing, the lenses and camera seems to be in working condition.

All the thanks to the photographer who told me once how never is a bad idea to have a cheap class in front of your expensive glass, you don’t know when the disaster will hit, as in my case ~50€ protected ~2000€ worth of equipment.

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WLMRO bragging time

2011-10-31
advertisingbucharestcityFOSSphotophotographerpublishedRomaniastreet
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The winners of the Wiki Loves Monuments photography contest are announced today, time for me to take a deep breath, rest and then brag a bit 😀

From the almost 5800 submitted pictures, the jury made a short selection of 284 “finalists”, pictures considered the best and worthy of a closer evaluation. Despite my notices and warnings, the other members of the jury selected a few of my own submissions among those finalists (as an organizer and jury member, I could not receive any prizes, but couldn’t abstain from contributing). And again despite my notices and warnings, they noted my photos (I disqualified them to be fair, giving my notes as ZERO) and, even with one of the 3 jury members noting them “0”, they are not the last in the list.

Bunt enough talk, here are the pics:

Stavropoleos noaptea Restaurantul Cina 1 Casa Assan 1 Biserica "Nașterea Maicii Domnului și Sf. Mucenic Ciprian" - Zlătari - interior

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Abigail CD cover

2011-10-26
musicphotophotographerphotomanipulationportfoliopublished
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Remember the project I was worked on with Abigail? It started to come into fruition, they have now a sleeve for their It Is The Nidht I Fear CD, with the photo I made in that session on the back side (the band photo):

abigail
m/

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Framed

2011-10-05
exibitionphotophotographer
2 Comments

It may be lame to talk much about it, but it was my first time to have a picture printed, framed and hanged to the wall of an exhibition which people actually come to see. And there also was an exhibition opening, with food and drinks and people looking and talking, it was… like real.

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Bucharest in black and white

2011-10-04
blackandwhitebucharestexibitionphotophotographerstreet
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Today is the opening of the “Bucharest in black and white” (Bucureștiul în alb și negru) photo gallery, where I qualified with one picture, the one below. Is open until the end of the month, so come and see us at Cărturești:

bucurestiul in alb si negru

While black and white is not exactly my thing, I have adjusted myself to follow the rules, And also had to adjust the framing, while I usually do 3:2, the rules here were 4:3 or 1:1, so unusual color space, unusual framing. Hope I didn’t sucked too much.

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Photowalk in Bucharest for Wikipedia

2011-09-26
bucharestcitycreativecommonsphotophotographerphotojournalismRomaniastreetwikipedia
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Part of the Wiki Loves Monuments campaign, we had this week-end an event called “Wiki Takes Bucharest” (it also happened in many other European cities), gathering together 7 contributors walking for a couple of hours trough the city and taking pictures of historical monuments for Wikipedia. I made a more in-depth account of it on my blog. It was fun and, I hope, productive:

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To the Livadă

2011-06-08
bucharesteditorialexibitionFAILphotophotographerRomania
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I was reluctant to participate to the Livada de fotografii, my first reaction was “my photos are not intended for exhibitions” and my laziness is king: why bother digging trough so many photos? So I decided not to participate.

The other day I changed my mind: I can visit it, and if I go there, I can display some photos too, printing 10 of them is cheap enough, less than a couple of beers. Got the idea for a couple of themes, decided for one of them (involving people kissing in the city’s parks), but when I opened the storage to search for them, remembered some I wanted were on the lost card and was put down again by laziness and an unrelated depression.

Some late night chats made me change my mind again: if in the morning I am apt enough, select some photos and print them. Since the quest for the main idea proved futile, the second one kicked in: cold buildings, shot from a wide angle… quite boring and unoriginal.

The morning wasn’t good at all: the life is a really dark gray, the beacons of light far enough and unreachable. But still went to select a mix, not the indented one but a spaghetti of unrelated pictures. Asked a friend for a reality check and to the print shop!

Well, it was a bad day for printing 🙂 Asked my boss for permission to go put and print, then on the route remembered I forgot to add a signature. Heck, I am not egomanical enough, so I can live without a signature, continue.

The closest print shop is the one I am trying to avoid, since I had some unpleasant experiences with them, but I am during the work hours and they are the closest, so I go there. Refreshing news: their printer is not working (again! that was my years old problem with them too). OK, nice not having business with you again, see you later (probably never).

There is another print shop not far, but I have to search for it, a few minutes found! Ask for prints, the clerk says “but we don’t have glossy paper, only matte”… since the next shop is too far away I accept. Then “but our printer is performing some tests, will take 15-20 minutes”. OK, what to do, accept it again.

20 minutes was enough to time to go back to the office, breath a couple of times and go back! He way expecting me with the prints and they came decent. People, see you to the Livada!

print photos

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The Easter Bunny

2011-04-27
funnyphotographerportraitspring
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The rule of this photography blog is to post pictures made by myself… today is a rare exception, with pictures of myself… Sunday, the Easter day, I was out in the city with a few photographer friends, I was prepared having with me a pair of bunny ears and when the gang saw them, they dared me to wear the ears trough the city and… I did so 🙂 Here are some pics taken by them:

Flori Jianu saw the “sexy bunny”:

easter bunny

Alin Dima the “cute one”:

easter bunny

Marian Nedelcu the “dangerous one”:

easter bunny

And Nick Constandache the “bunny in love” (with his own shadow…):

easter bunny

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“Garage” shooting in Herastrau

2011-04-06
bucharestflowergirlsphotophotographerportraitspringwomen
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Sunday in the park we didn’t shoot only the cute dog, we took advantage of one of us who came with his fiancé, Bianca, so we also put her to “work” as a model. She did quite a nice job:

bianca
bianca
biancabianca

At some point I almost modelled myself, when I climbed to a tree branch over the lake to show her a posture… too bad she was not comfortable on that branch… probably I am a bit more unconscious 😀
showing

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