Biography

Beginning with the end: I got myself doing some web design as I set these pages. Like many other activities this also deprived me of sleep.

As in any biography, you will find in mine something that becomes a cliché but I am not the precocious kid in this art or profession, did not got any cameras from my father only taken by abuse. There was a first step towards photography, if we were to be tolerant, which was quite savage. I have discovered our family cameras, 3 pieces, out of which I succeeded taking out of use two. I used the last one a couple of years later with a moderate level of success, meaning that the pictures looked as I expected – black and white and you could recognize the present persons – nothing more. A few more years later, with a borrowed manual camera, I took some good vacation photos. This also was not the magic moment that the passion will start roar. Only when I bought a dependable camera camera (Canon EOS 300) my addiction to photography took of. The prelude of this acquisition triggered off my passion.

Not a very long time ago (2005) I took a course in photography at the University Ioan I. Dalleswhich is something that I recommend to beginners and for medium level photographers as well. Mr. Professor Mociornita Dumitru has many aces in his sleeve even for advanced or professional photographers.

There are no personal exhibitions on my account, I haven’t won any prize with my photos nor money and there is no style yet stuck with me. I studied sociology and I currently work as a 3D graphic artist and that’s the way my passion got subvented.

I am an occasional photographer. For the beginning that may loosely define me. I have followed certain themes, yet there is not something clear to characterize my interests. All I have done was to point my camera towards what amused, enchanted, inspired me, towards peculiar, awkward situations, particular framings, towards family and friends. Therefore, I own a mixture of photos from all the experiments I did. I was telling myself I am an urban photographer, as I did not have affinities for excursions and journeys unless they happened to be on the alleys between the communist blocks.

Black and white photography has many secrets yet hidden to me, I am aware of it, but at least I scratched the surface. I have flirted with it in some occasions and it helps because ideas or atmospheres are better rendered this way and some times, it is the only way. There were just some experiments.

Because of it’s price, quality (there is a lot of debate going on here, I know), speed, fast feedback and probably some many other smaller reasons and after about 70 rolls of traditional 35mm film, I became partner of the digital photography. Processing black and white negative wasn’t a frequent practice – only did it a couple of times but there is still time. I would like to get back some time to some slides and black and white!

Yes, I do tweak my pictures, some more some less but I do treasure natural looks, I am not keen on intensive manipulated - high imaginative fantasy type of photography. Well, not yet. If it happens to spend a too long time on adjusting an image for me it is a sign that it is perhaps just a bad picture and I skip to the next one. I enjoy lab time as much as I enjoy action, taking pictures and discovering new pictures with a slight balance towards the last one.

I do not have good lenses, not even acceptable ones, I own a very popular DSLR. I wish I had something better but I am aware that it will not give me now a great advantage. Improvisation is my middle name – avoid at all costs marketing traps of hundreds and thousands of dollars. Of course, sometimes your project makes some investments affordable and many times improvisations are not good enough.

In the mean time, I shoot what I like and I enjoy it. I am learning and trying to improve my skills and get an idea about the philosophy involved in photography. For the moment I am done with the web design, time to get back to photographing spree.

Bogdan Spineanu