This post has been a LONG time coming. I’m sorry that I haven’t kept you up-to-date recently, but hopefully you’ll understand why by the end of this post!
I can’t believe that it’s already Autumn, it seems as though the summer flew by and I STILL didn’t get to go swimming, probably because I’ve been back-to-back doing things either for the studio or for myself!
Untold came and went, if you didn’t see that post already, you should check it out here. I briefly mentioned in that post that I had moved once again to a new location and for those who already know what all that is about, great but for those who don’t here’s the info!
Moving On
So, as you probably remember, I moved to a new place at the start of 2014 in the Manastur area of Cluj-Napoca. Well, after over 1 year there (actually the longest I’ve stayed anywhere since moving to Romania), I decided it’s time to upgrade as the 34m2 apartment just wasn’t big enough to house both me and my studio.
Every time I needed to take a photo session, I would literally have to pack up the entire bedroom and convert it into a studio, which would literally take about an hour. The only advantage of that is that I had the chance to clean thoroughly under the bed, something that 90% of us don’t actually do.
Now I’ve moved to a place which is about 60m2 and therefore, has PLENTY of space for me, my gear and my pet! I did love living at that place though, it always had a great view towards the end of the city and I have so many great memories from there!
The move was quite small… I mean, I am living around 300m from where I originally lived. That doesn’t mean that the move was easy, it didn’t make ANY sense to hire a company or pay for someone to help with their car as it would have actually taken longer to load it and unload it… Instead, myself and a couple of friends became rather innovative and used a shopping cart from the local store!
Must have looked rather strange but after just a few hours, everything was done, items were moved and I could start preparing to get comfortable in my new place!
I’ve moved into so many different places since I moved here, I thought it would be fun to watch the progression throughout the years, so here’s an album below of all the different places I’ve called “home” in the past 3 years!
Bd. 1 Decembrie 1918, Targu-Mures
Strada Transilvania 20 – Targu-Mures
Strada Constantin Brancusi – Cluj-Napoca
Aleea Padin 20 – Cluj-Napoca
The New Place!
Now, obviously this needed to be turned into a studio, so with the helping hands of a friend and fellow photographer Fred Dwe, whom I met through Untold Festival, we got to work on setting up the new backdrop system!
The end result was magnificent!
Of course, could just stop there and decided to re-arrange the entire apartment and even re-paint one of the rooms… The bedroom. I mean, come on, I love this country, but sometimes, your interior colour choices really make me scratch my head and wonder why that was ever a good idea!Moved the furniture from the hallway and swapped it with the bedroom stuff!
The end result was excellent! Here are some before and after photos:
So now the studio is all set, it’s an awesome place to spend time and relax but equally an awesome place to take photos and do what I love doing the most!
As you can see from the video, one second it’s fine, the next it’s smoking away. Not exactly the best start, but it did force me to invest in new lighting, which although is expensive, is totally worth it! I mean, these lights were super cheap and they have lasted since 2010, been sent halfway across Europe, been moved from one place to another 5 times and also knocked over, bumped into, dropped and goodness knows what else. The ones that I am replacing them with are 10x better and much more professional!
And they are LITERALLY on their way!
They should be here tomorrow… and for sure I’ll have to mess around with them and poke them like a child at Christmas!
Either way, the photo session with Timea came out great, you can see a video from the photo session below! Thanks again Fred Dwe for capturing the video with his nice wide-angle lens… I keep meaning to buy one, but they’re not too much use for portraits.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s everything for now! I’ll hopefully be posting a bit more regularly now that things are settling down!
Until next time… Thanks for reading!