Avem, ca Români…

Libertatea nu este o utopie.

Avem ape, munți, Dunăre, Deltă, peșteri, defileuri, vulcani noroioși, cei mai vechi munți (orogenetic) și multe alte minuni geografice…
Avem fete frumoase, zic unii, alții zic că cele mai frumoase.
Avem tradiții, ritualuri, povești, amintiri, datini străbune nepăstrate niciunde în întregime ca la noi.
Avem olimpici, medaliați, sportivi, arhitecți, ingineri, doctori, farmaciști, astronomi, fizicieni suficient cât să facem 1/2 din populația Microsoft și 1/5 din cea a NASA, 20% din BMW și 8% din sistemul sanitar Canadian.
Avem vinuri, pălinci, țuici, șampanii, un coniac și chiar un whisky premiate și premiate din nou la festivaluri internaționale.
Avem aur, minereuri feroase și neferoase, gaze naturale, sare de pică ocna pe noi și petrol cât să belească ochii americanii.
Avem faună nemaiîntâlnită și păream un fel de Madagascar al zonei temperate, iar de floră nici nu mai vorbesc.
Avem numele scris în istorie: în sânge fierbinte sau nevinovat dar încoronat cu aur. Ștefan, Mihai, Eminescu, Vlaicu, Poenaru, Odobleja și alții cu care să ne tapetăm conștiința bolnavă…
Și atunci…de ce mama dracului nu suntem în stare să ne adunăm dracului o dată ca nație?! Ca să-și bată pula de noi Obama și Merkel și să ne fută-n cur în propria țară țiganii și ungurii extremiști.
165 de ani mai târziu, tot încercăm să ne deșteptăm…

3/365 or why I hate taking selfportraits

Ah, self portraits…ever since ancient times, the human ego thingy hasn’t gone one step further from drawing one another one a cave wall and calling it art.
What’s my big issue with “selfies”? (other than being a never ending pool of self-feeding egomaniacal abyss).
A self portrait rarely reflects anything about the artist. Whereas a portrait, by definition, should reveal something (whether true or a role played behind a mask) about a certain someone.
Self portraits LIE! And they do so brazenly and in a cheeky manner. I have yet to see a self portrait where the vision reflects either true enunciation of one’s personality or a true form of artistic foul play or theatrics. We cannot lie enough to ourselves and we cannot lie good enough for others to be deceived.
While the risks involving a true exposure of oneself are, do doubt, to be taken into consideration (given the amount of information warfare going on), in my personal opinion, I believe a self portrait should be done as sincerely as possible or as artistically as possible.
I mean, you won’t send grandma a photo of you acting all mysterious for the sake of facebook’s likes, aye?
Nor will you post on such social networks a photo of you taking a bath, as a baby…or would you?
As the curtain between privacy and publicizing our every living moment gets blurred by the year, I feel…torn.
On one hand, I believe in the intimacy of certain moments and the necessity for those moments to be shared with special people and be kept and treasured deep inside one’s mind.
On the other hand, the utopian inside of me would aspire to a universal bonding, a “big family” (oh, the hippies are all gettin’ giddy). Yet we cannot do so if we keep presenting false imagery and shallow, see-through masks. It only gives people more trust issues (and fills psychiatrist’s pockets, mind you).
Now, the rant above begs the question: is this a true self portrait? Is it sincere? Is it a well-cast mask? I guess that is for you to decide.

Her Sad Story (1/365)

And with this, I shall start my 365 challenge.
This is an image I shot during the making of a short movie (whose title is still unrevealed due to the movie being still in pre-production)
Hanging around on the set sure is fun and you can definitely snap some interesting things, from emotions to simple amazing and funny stills.
What’s so special about it? Other than it was a completely lucky shot and filled with emotion? Being shot on a 40-year old lens, full manual with no meter data whatsoever.
So…here it goes. My first post on the 365 challenge. I don’t have anything set in stone, I jsut want to redefine my style and work more on my photography since I feel I kinda’ neglected it lately.
Are any of you doing the 365 Challenge? Let me know!  🙂

Where is my mind?

There is nothing more heartbreaking that a ride on the melancholy train. Rain. Cold. Night. You stare at your own reflection and can’t believe what you see. You look at others, the exact same patterns. No light in their eyes. We commute from day to day with no point, missing targets, dragging endlessly…forever dragging.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Regret

Nihil sine paenitentia.

Negative Influence

Color the world and you shall stick out and, therefore, be left out.

Continuum

Static

It happens more and more these days. People become…static.
They keep saying the world is alert and fast, that hundreds of gigabytes of information crosses our minds everyday, that people become batteries. Somehow, I feel that all we can be is vessels for this flow of action, dynamic and particle torrents. This, and nothing more.

How many of us wake up just burning to start a new day, full of unknown, discovery and excitement? Kids, maybe, but even they resort to burying their young and untrained minds in simplistic or numbing actions like the absolute useless school program, shallow cartoons that promote senseless violence (remember Tom & Jerry…anyone? no? How about Disney Classics?) or dwell into the attractions of modern technology and would rather play a round of Call of Duty on XBOX than building a tree house.

As for the adults, they spend their young years partying and “living the life” (a.k.a being under the influence 80% of the time) while later they struggle in a society that offers no place for the one that doesn’t fit the patterns : docile and willing to work and be lead by someone in a higher position using fear, money, religion or some other form of power.

Therefore, being a vessel, a carrier for others needs, visiting the world’s greatest museums just so they can brag about it, or simply considering that one’s purpose here is to live this life as well as possible or with fewer losses qualifies one as static.

The Hawthorne Passage

Because there is nothing more to say…just…listen:

Cerberus?