This one is for the children

After photographing my grand parents and family in Romania, I took the interest of snooping around the building a bit and photographing a few of the people living there. I noticed the large amount of children who were either homeless or poor. Many were of Gypsy origins, and had no place to live. 

Many of them were taking to the streets from surrounding homes and finding all sorts of games to play. They were constantly interacting with their surrounding and gave myself a lot of attention. They asked me what was I doing photographing the area? Wether I was able to take their picture for them and wether I was going to let them use my camera to take a few pictures? I was surprised that they were already so adapted to the digital world and kept asking me to show them the pictures I took at the back of my film camera. 

Traveling around I saw many of these young children who didn't seem to have their families or guardians around them. I found out that there were many children who didn't have families in that area and that many families who were also living on the street were taking care of them. They were forming custom communities based on need and what surrounded them. 

In this picture there were two girls building a fort out of cardboard. They were playing a game together, preparing them from the rain and yet still having fun with things they found. Their family was very protective of them and came to interrogate me, trying to find out wither I was friendly or trying to harm them somehow. They were a bit violent and very quickly I found myself surrounded by ten to twelve uncles and fathers who were very angry. It took me about Three hours to calm them down and convince them that I was only a student and not the Mafia threat they mistook me for. Apparently there were foreign gangs who came into Romania from other countries and kidnapped children, murdered them and sold their organs on the black market. 

That news to me was both shocking and stopped me form being able to document as much of Romania as I wanted to. I was never able to find out who or where did all this happen from, but I did confirm the fact that child kidnapping was a common problem in my half country. 

Familia Mia

These are part of a series that I've been working on  for the past 4 to 5 years. They are pictures of my family in Romania extending to some of my family in that states. I've been really doing this mostly for myself, but found something nice and beautiful to explore. These two images are of my Mother in the foreground and my grandmother in the back. They were reliving some old memories, maybe my mothers childhood, maybe some of mine. My grandmother started feeling really shy to be participating in these and used my mother as a shield a few times to stay out of the cameras sight. It was actually her idea for me to start photographing them though. She told me one day that her and my grandfather are getting old and that there is no knowing when or where we can have these experiences together. It was kind of frightening at first to hear that, since it was when I first picked up photography and was already given a task by my grandparents to document their coming close to the end of their lives. My grandmother has actually asked me to take a couple of straight portraits for their funeral, which I have still not been able to get myself to do. But for now I seem to have captured more of a celebration of their old age and connection with my family. 

Pool of Calm

I am coming up with a video soon that represents more of what I was trying to achieve through this image. It is mostly a sound piece that is accompanied by video. I can remember that as a child I would play a game where I would try to spend as much time under water as I could. I played this game even alone and had very little interest in competition. What I did try to achieve though was a form of adaptation. I was trying to evolve to be the first human fish species. I related the calm of how things sounded underwater to my sleep and felt as if I would be happiest if I lived in that pool of calm for the rest of my life. I remember that I had all sorts of experiments that actually worked in keeping me underwater as much as possible. one distinct logic I used that I can remember was that if you shut all your senses under water then there is less need for your body to exhaust its energy in burning oxygen. In school at the time I was learning about our respiratory system and got to know that oxygen in your body is needed to be burnt in order to move your limbs and muscles and make your body go on living. I am not sure about this since I didn't study it further, but I was pretty sure that if you close your eyes and try to limit your thoughts and your movement that it would conserve more oxygen and thus I can stay under for longer. That was probably one of my first approach to accidental meditation. 

Dualities

This image was taken with infrared film that I was experimenting with when I was in school. It was part of a project that explored Greek mythology and incorporated it with things I was dealing with at the time. There are a lot of dualities that I find in my work as a recurrent theme, that leads me to believe that I have always been leaning towards a world where two things meet and make sense together. wether it is a relationship between two people, or even two different philosophies that can meet half way and form a new one. Or simply two plants that are growing from the same ground, under the same circumstances, influencing each other and yet come out to adapt very differently. different lengths, difference shapes, different ides. 

I sometimes do believe that paradoxes can coexist and still make sense. to me a concrete world lies right next to an abstract one and separated by something liquid like water. Water can take the shape of both the glass its being held in and the air pressure blowing at it. and to us? thats what were left with. being constantly ping ponged between those two surfaces and taking different shapes, different forms, growing up.... having different ideas that even as a kid one would start developing  a view on what reality is. Maybe we grow up because we assume that age has something to do with our understanding of these surfaces or the world. and maybe we believe that the longer time one has spent on a subject the closer they are to its meaning. yet we can be wrong. we can all be going further and further. And just maybe our most simple truths were the times spent as a duality, as a contradiction. was I one person in my mothers belly? was I two people? Was I her once for a few months till I was flushed into uncertainty? Maybe truths only come as that. as two things combined that creates a paradox. Maybe love and our common urge to seek it and attain it is simply finding that truth we once had. For 6, 7, 8, 9 months you give and take whichever. for that period we were certain. No need of vocabulary, of metaphors to express ourselves. all we needed to do to express feelings it to have more of them. ..... and maybe I'm just dreaming out loud...

Kiwi

A literary bird likes to chew on words. one word at  a time. chump chump chump

Heres a couple more

Made with love

A lot of stories hanging from rubber

Over my bed a couple of months ago I started working on this installation that turned into a collaboration with my love Andrea. It was a large web made of rubber bands of different colors and sorts that tied together many story pages from an old book I had. The book was later used as a hiding place for my parakeet birds and in a photograph that will translate into film for my upcoming short film. 

I havnt settled on a title yet. but this ongoing slow project is finally starting to come around into a start soon... just need more enthusiasm thats all...

Awareness

Two new drawings that are displayed backwards due to what happens when you use photobooth to upload your work.. this is how I look to myself though. maybe this is what these drawings would see themselves as if they had self awareness. speaking of self awareness... that happens a lot if you are hanging upside down from a thin string. but definitely not comfortable...