Every time I arrive in the city center, I feel like a provincial traveler in the city, and I am a little afraid of the hustle and bustle, a hurried crowd.
Probably, this is a case of suburb syndrome. I live on the outskirts of the city and spend most of my time there, as I have everything I need in the neighborhood. However, at least once a week, I make it to the city center, which is a half-hour away by subway.
The notion of a city center is quite relative; a boundary does not define it, and everyone has a favorite place they consider the center.
I like this part of the city because it is the most significant concentration of old, historical buildings. Such concentration gives the image of an eclectic town, full of contrasts, and because of that, I am left with a question I don't know the answer to:
Why do I like Bucharest?
When I want to get away from the crowds, I walk on the side streets, behind the boulevards, a place where cars at least sit, happy to have found a parking space.
One of these streets, Eforie, holds significance and evokes memories of my youth. Here is the National Film Archive, a place that I frequented almost daily, and I can say that I "ate" movies on my bread.
Cars everywhere, even on sidewalks...
Old and new, I appreciate this mix of old buildings, some dilapidated, alongside modern structures and other architectural styles from different eras.
When I'm in places where the buildings are from the last century, and even older, I think and wonder what city life was like back then. I believe that, as colorful as it is now, the difference is that the images of these places in the photos are only in black and white. This is one of the reasons why I want to reproduce these photos in black and white.
I think back to early twentieth-century photographers and realize that it was much more difficult for them to photograph and capture on paper images of these streets.
Around the 70's of the last century, I started to photograph myself and everything else until the image was on photographic paper. I can say that it was not easy; however, it was easier than for photographers of the 20s, as well as those of the last century... and much more laborious than now, when all you have to do is push a few buttons!
We have to see the hidden beauty in the things surrounding us.
