My Favorite Images From 2023 – A Look Back on My Work

”The world will end when the love between people will perish.” This is the creating energy that rules the world.

If I look back at my work in 2023 I can easily say which are my favorite images, and which are the best ones, but if I take a step back, I instantly understand that I love all the images together as a photostory.

Entitled “Romanian Sayings Served Up on a Plate” my new series is an artistic metaphor that emphasizes the knowledge of Romanian sayings and proverbs gathered from the wisdom of the people, confronted with the new reality created through manipulated truth and lies, served up daily on a plate. The Romanian sayings contain the wisdom of its ancestors and their moral values, speak of the sanctity of life, contain the meaning of life, and are a cornerstone in the essence of human life.

I started the project out of amusement and desperation as a means of expressing my frustration and anger at the lie we are forced to live in. We live in such a beautiful country, we have everything, only so we can watch, hopelessly, how everything is stolen away. And people’s lives do not matter anymore.

I sat in a market, looking at the absurdly high prices of the onion. A country, that not long ago was the richest country in Europe, first in agriculture, is now devasted and destroyed. It is hard even to understand and impossible to make sense of. Its people are made baggers and sent into exile.

I started this project with the idea of making one single image representing the absurdity of the situation by asking:

Don’t people see the truth anymore ??

Continuing the idea I thought it would be a short mini-series that I would finish in a very short time, summing about 10 images. Always asking:

Are people believing these lies??

I already have 50 images and endless ideas. Most importantly, I have gathered a huge documentation, numerous hidden elements, and truths of great importance, not only for my nation and country but for the whole world.

Starting from the feeling of complete anger, and making a first image, the project became an exploration of my identity and the Romanian identity, a reflection of a decaying society and a warning of the wrong way the society is going. The project puts a magnifying glass on the truth, intending to open the eyes of the viewer, to ask questions, and to find the truth himself.

I believe it is our duty as photographers to shine a light on the truth and the sacred path that humankind must take, and to depict the common sense (as a term defined in Romanian society), the values, and the rules that society must not break.

If we listen to the old wisdom of the people, we will understand that the essence of the Romanian people has always been based on values such as truth, dignity, honor, and respect, but today, the leading people want to impose on us a society based on lies, untruth, hypocrisy. Vanity rules over us, believing to be all-knowing, with defiant words, which want to turn the world upside down, to invert all moral values, until we will call evil, good.

Love is what holds us together as people, as a family, and as a nation.