Unbirth

Unbirth

The Earth is not a Phoenix

Its plumage is blue and specked green

It combusts but won’t rise from the shadow

Of burning ash

Never to breathe life again

Unlike the firebird and hence the name.

 

Oil leaks are not ornithology

The lens are clouded with soot

Blue waves of ether streaked

Pungent of black blood. And grime.

Birds cannot swim the dark night.

Drowning in mid-flight.

 

Uncage the Phoenix.

Freedom means nil.

Rebirth in bondage means less still.

Blinded by ashes and somptuous smog.

It swirls a dance of putrid existance.

Unbirth the Earth. Un-hatch the egg.

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.

A mental illness awareness project

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Recently, one of my colleagues from Med School approached me and asked me if I wanted to help her with a charity project she was running: raising funds for a few orphans with certain disabilities. This center in our town is full of benevolent people but the funding (as with most of the things here) are very low and some of the proper medical equipment and staff but they do what they can for these poor souls.
As my friend was directing the mental illness department in the Med School’s society, I got the idea of illustrating this in a small staged photoshoot. What followed was an interesting experience, with all the models having no previous experience and improvising on the way. Enjoy!

Of Cats and Curiosity

"As I sat, perched above it all, and stared in wonder, I couldn't stop but ask myself: is intelligence incited by curiosity or is it the other way around? "

Rock concerts and the Journey

So on Saturday, June 25th, I attended the Lake of Tears concert in Bucharest held on the Roman Arenas, along with Amine and some 3000 other people. Getting to Bucharest from my town requires a 4 hour train trip during which, most of the time, you become bored as hell. Having an exam hang above your head the following day isn’t the most tranquil thought either. It seems I have a thing with trains and shooting out from them because every time I hope on one, I keep clicking that shutter button like crazy and find numerous subjects with every new kilometer unfolding. This time, the landscape section took over as some morning , wet clouds floated close to earth and predicted a new storm coming, while the crops of various grain stretched across Romania’s biggest Plain.  
And with all that beautiful imagery, when we reached Bucharest, it was all about to rain as we started heading towards the concert location.
Now, even though I am not a teenager anymore, I still get excited every time one of my favorite bands has a concert. I jump, sing and scream and, at the end of it, I feel like every muscle in my body cries in pain, my throat is useless while notes from every song, the crowd singing and clapping and the general atmosphere of joy and overflowing energy will remain in my memory as one of the most amazing experiences ever (which is normal, for an audiophile like me).

The one thing I regret, though is that they didn’t allow us to bring cameras to the concert and I was limited to cell phone shots which can’t be held accountable as true photographic evidence due to poor quality, but they’re perfect for that personal album in which you store all these memories and sometimes you open to refresh the feeling.

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:

Crooked Reality

Perhaps one of my most right-in-front-your-eyes photo, I have ever taken.
Perhaps, because it has always been there, yet I somehow failed to notice the effect, even though it was a common sight on my way back home from school.
And it made me wonder…how many of us live their lives in complete ignorance to the reality around us? How many retire in a fantasy, distorted, kinder, simpler world, where things are closer to perfect, where the equation needs no adjustments and laws apply for ideal bodies?

In a (third world) country like Romania, where surviving each day is a new victory, I have seen this phenomenon happen so often that it’s hard to name but a few handful of people I know, that live their lives according to principles of freedom when most struggle between getting eaten alive by the system and trying to beat arteriosclerosis and perhaps a stroke by the age of 34 due to stress and the uncertainty of tomorrow, and put a smile on from time to time.
As personal introspection, I tried, for a few weeks after shooting this, to stop from my infernal hellride I call daily life and take a closer look behind (like seeing the details when a process is on a slow-mo camera).
And you know, it’s not all bad.
Sometime you just need to relax, and let certain things slide and, to quote Bobby McFerrin, “don’t worry, be happy”.
Because otherwise frustration will get the best of you and you will start wanting a way out, to break the circle of monotony, something to pull the cloth off your eyes and take a look at the sky and actually understand yet this will come in the form of a surrogate relief such as drugs, alcohol or a certain other addiction that only appears to be healing the wounds. It is the society that pushes us to live like zombies, carrying out orders for those higher in rank, breaking the spirit, diluting the individual and making us more docile and malleable.
Have you noticed how easily people get entertained today? A cat video on YouTube, a simple and addictive game on Facebook… MMORPGs have taken the toll and rise to the rank of vice today, eating more time and health than many others, such as smoking or drinking.
It’s only because people need a way out, but caught in the tornado of things that “must be done” and without proper guidance, they stumble hesitantly in the dark, blind, cold and discouraged.
So, next time, open your eyes and break reality down to the puzzle pieces, to the atoms and squeeze out the “carpe diem” to feed the marrow of your spirit!