Snowflake: perfection of the imperfection

In what I presume to be this season's last winter photoshot I noticed how big and beautiful snowflakes were falling on my camera, it was cold enough they didn't melt. As you can't take photos of something sitting on the body of your camera, I chased a few, and tried to shot them from my hand.

The photo is not perfect, as I held the snowflake in the left hand, the camera with the lenses extended to the max in the right hand, in freezing cold and snow over the ankles:

Do you know the snowflakes are supposed to be unique, not two identical ones? Each one will have its own imperfections and be distinct. You know, just like people, only the snowflakes are so many more and so ephemeral...

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Birdies

Snowbound in the park I found this image lovely:



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Winter in the park

Winter strikes back just when I though all is over: a lot of snow and so cold that even the stones are breaking (this morning the thermometer was showing -16°C, supposedly over night it was even colder). So I planned to take advantage of the winter while is still possible, with a week-end photoshot, no matter the cold.

Saturday it was a beautiful snow, with large and slow snowflakes and lacking the possibility to for a photoshot in a traditional countryside, I though the Village Museum from Herastrau Park is the best next replacement, the closest fake. Unfortunately, the Museum was close, dunno if it is closed all winter long or I was just unlucky, so all I could take was a few shots from across the lake:

There are also a few other park decorations with a rustic feel:

And of course, the ducks (I think they are heroes for bathing in that water):

And there were also some very happy (and fat) small birds:

I found impressive the real winter tree decorations:

And found funny this statue (is Venus? Diana? not sure, but this statue is in the park for as long as I remember), effectively swimming in snow, it made me think about how old farts (like me) are saying: in my time, to do X we had to walk Y miles uphill in the snow

When going home, under the Arcul de Triumf I saw those poor soldiers in festive uniforms, over the week-end was the Union Day, so they had to be part of some ceremonies:


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Spring's announcers

A week ago when the weather was warm and nice and I thought the winter is gone for good I noticed in my garden some snowdrops (ghiocei) preparing to blossom and, as cliché as it is, I wanted to take a photo, as the message is strong, they are the first flowers of the year, the triumph of live over death, spring over winter.

With a full time work, at 7:30 in the morning when I leave home is not enough light and at 19-19:30 in the evening when I get back, it it already pitch black for a couple of hours already... yeah, that's one of the ugliest parts of the winter, so my only chance was to wait for the week-end, hoping also for a ray of light, to make the photos more lively.

Fast forward to Saturday: the sky was cloudy, dark and depressing, not the atmosphere I wanted to illustrate the triumph of spring... so postponed one more day. Sunday morning, no luck either: the same dark, heavy clouds, the same depressing atmosphere. However, the ground was covered with some icy dust, a lame snow attempt, so I got the camera out for some photos, even if the story was different than the plan in my head. It still was a good story, about the winter who does not give-up easily:

Much to my surprise, today (Monday) morning when I opened the door was hit with a huge surprise: everything was white, a full winter is back. Of course my snowdrop flowers were covered fully in snow and of course it was too early in the morning, to dark to take a contrasting photos about how winter has won one more battle.

Now waiting for the next week-end, wondering which surprise will bring, what story will be told, what photos to be taken...

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A country with beautiful women?

I often see Romanians priding of our country because the women are beautiful here. I really don't see why I would pride with that, if Geta from Floor 3 is gorgeous, that does not make me better, smarter of more handsome. Even if I somehow get to bang her, that does not make me better, smarter of more handsome. Maybe just lucky for that particular time and space.

I am also highly unsure about this claim, about the Romanian women being that beautiful... I saw a lot of them being ugly or average. Maybe the percentage of above-average ones is a bit over some other countries, but (and I speak now from a photographer perspective) the percentage of top-of-the line, breath-taking, knocking-you-off, stunning beauties is not something I find impressive.

However, I just stumbled on a site with an top 15 of countries with the hottest women and Romania is listed among those. I'm not sure if I should dismiss this for listing Andreea Răducan as the country's highlight or for including USA and UK in the top. I just note one of the criteria for inclusion in the top "the girls are said to love American men" (American men, is not you but your money.

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Video: fireworks for 2010

In addition to the photos from the New Year's Eve parties and fireworks I also recorded vidos. Unfortunately blip.tv failed with the conversion so the entire show is available in a ~970MB .OGV (Ogg Theora) and the only thing I can offer is a low-quality cut version (09:50 minutes long) on YouTube.



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How I spent the 2010 New Year's Eve

A short lived tradition (it was the second iteration), but is still a tradition, it was again the time of the year to shoot New Year's Eve concerts and fireworks. Unlike the last year, when my choice was to boycott a communist mayor ans stay in Piața Revoluției, this year I headed to the main event, in Piața Constituției.

However, I still passed trough Piața Revoluției, with a party organised by Pro TV and MTV, which was flooded with people wearing blue and red fedoras (I covered more about this elsewhere).

One thing to appreciate is those people know hot to make a show, even if they co bad in the opposite direction with manele:

After spending about half an hour there, I moved to Piața Constituției:

There it was a varied audience:

Listening to music

And having tons of fun

I appreciated the "evil" side

And rocked a bit

And then participated in the countdown

And enjoyed the show, with lasers

And fireworks

And lasers

And fireworks

And fire

And lasers again

And fireworks

Into the huge spectacle

All the time I was as busy as I could: in the right hand holding (and shooting with) the dSLR, and with the left hand recording video:

One over another, it was a positive experience.

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