Romanian Impressions

I shot this picture with a Leica M10 last September while travelling in Romania. When I decided to travel to this for me new country, I didn’t have any specific story in mind, I just wanted to capture some spontaneous impressions while walking around Bucharest, Constanta or the countryside.

I started in the capital, hoping to catch certain moments on the streets; in the city centre I saw a man dressed as a First World War soldier smoking a cigarette. Intrigued, I started talking with him: he had just returned from a rehearsal for an event launching a new exhibition at the National Museum of Romanian History, an impressive and beautiful building right behind us. As the launch would be later the same day, he suggested I come.

Several hours later I was at the museum, where I found many people dressed like the man I’d met on the street. After the new exhibition was officially introduced, the costumed people did a short performance, acting as though there were on the front line. I took lots of pictures but I didn’t really like them. At the back of the room, behind the public, there were students also in uniform, whom I guessed were from the Police Academy. Suddenly a beautiful ray of sun pierced the room caressing several of the students’ faces until it reached this young woman with such strong blue eyes; and that’s when I took this photograph, using the great summilux 35mm lens.

I kept photographing the students for a while, and then the ceremony again; however, in the end, thanks to the sun beam and the student’s blue eyes, this picture proved to be the strongest and the only one I kept from this event.

You can see further pictures by William Daniels in LFI 2/2017.