About Me

For me photography means sometimes taking portraits of people, or sometimes just of places.

That means traveling to places where the earth itself feels wounded. In 2010, I went to Kazakhstan to see the Aral Sea — or rather, what was left of it. Once the world’s fourth largest lake, it had been emptied by Soviet irrigation schemes, its water drained to feed cotton fields hundreds of kilometers away. I found rusting ships stranded in sand, their hulls creaking in the dry wind, like whispers from a drowned time. Villages that had once lived by the shore were now surrounded by desert, the sea they depended on vanished beyond memory. People still lived there, with quiet dignity, their faces holding the weight of both survival and loss. I raised my camera, but every frame felt too small to hold the story. The silence was louder than any image I could make. (Photos from the ARAL SEA PROJECT)

Sometimes it means walking into houses long left behind. Villages deserted, or barely breathing. The silent history of lives that once burned brightly, now fading into dust. Often, the mysteries beneath these ruins reveal themselves as remarkable stories, the moment someone stops to listen. There are places that feel like time capsules — you step inside, and the walls seem to whisper. You lose yourself there, and for a moment, you live lives long gone.

Change has always carried disappearance with it. History tells us this, with the quiet certainty of an elder’s voice: entire civilizations have vanished, thousands of species of plants and animals erased. But there is something sadder still — to lose even the memory of them.

This is why I return, camera in hand, to capture the traces, the echoes, the fragile threads of what remains. Because each house, each cracked window and dusty room, still speaks. And together, they all belong to MISSING HOME PROJECT.

Sometimes it means spending years chasing words through faces. More than two years of work, more than a hundred people — loved for what they write, for how they let language breathe through them. Their names rest on book covers, and sometimes they sound as familiar as the names of old friends. Every name has a face. Every face has a mystery.

This journey among writers became something more than portraits; it was a search beyond glances and gestures, for that fleeting moment when a tilt of the head or the pause of a hand reveals pure literature. A conversation between image and word.

From all these encounters, thirty portraits have been chosen — threads of time, woven together —  in the pages of a photo album, ROMANIAN WRITERS.
Sometimes it simply means looking into a stranger’s eyes and staying there long enough for something unspoken to surface. I’ve taken portraits of people I’ve met on mountain paths, in crowded cities, in forgotten villages. Some were quiet, some carried storms behind their smiles, some had stories they didn’t even know they were telling.

A portrait isn’t just an image. It’s a fragile agreement between two people: I will let you see me, if you really look, in the series PORTRAITS.

I live and work in Bucharest, though I often travel great distances.

Workshops

My photographical specialization varies from portraiture, street photography, photo reportage and storytelling, to wedding and special events, street fashion and nude photography.

One to one classes – Include improving your photography skills through a series of 2h meetings when you will experience taking pictures in complex situations, varying for every student and his needs and likes. Taking photo assignments and receiving constructive feedback upon your work. Special attention will be paid to practical aspects and we will spend a lot of time shooting, though technical and theoretical aspects will also be covered.

Structure and content will be determined by each participant’s particular objectives and abilities, so feel free to contact me for details such as pricing, duration and planning.

Group (workshops) – Various services are available for groups, details available upon request.