Jan 062010
 

Versiune în română

And finally I present to you the last photos in the snow series, all taken two days ago in my favourite park, Cişmigiu. Looks like the subzero cold wasn’t enough to keep people from coming to the park. Lots of folks were out and about strolling the alleys; it’s true that nobody was sitting on the benches for a chat 🙂 I’ve met quite a few fellows with their cameras and even compared photo equipment with a couple (they had a Nikon while I’m part of the Canon team). As you can see in the above photo, someone was feeding the pigeons just as I entered the park. Here comes the rest:

Taking a stroll


The frozen benches


The gazebo


Statue of Ion Creangă, Romanian writer


The Christmas decorations at the park’s entrance

Jan 052010
 

Versiune în română

With the arrival of the new snow, all the statues in the city have received white blankets to protect themselves from the cold. Such is the case of the statue in today’s photo, one of the four statues located in University Square, representing Gheorghe Lazăr (June 5, 1779 – September 17, 1821) a Transylvanian-born Romanian scholar who founded the first Romanian language school in Bucharest in 1818. The statue was executed in 1886 by the sculptor Ion Georgescu.

Jan 032010
 

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The attraction park that was temporarily installed in the Union Square Park gave me the opportunity to try shooting an “implying motion” photo, by using a slow shutter speed to shoot a moving object. The effect I was going for was a moving object that will appear blurred while the stationary objects around it will be recorded in sharp details. I tried this technique on a number of rides. The merry go round didn’t come out too well but the ride in today’s photo came out a little better. This was the best I could get without a tripod as I didn’t have one with me.

Jan 012010
 

Versiune în română

Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Changes. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Once again I will tell you a story that has to do with the communist dictatorship that has ruled over Romania for over 40 years. I know this topic shows up a lot in my posts but that’s only because it’s part of recent history and it left marks on Bucharest and its people that are still visible.

When the communists came to power in 1945 they took down all the statues of kings and famous politicians in an attempt to erase the memories of a past that was not linked to their ideology. Most of them were destroyed, melted away. But the wheel of history rolls on, and eventually it came the turn of communists to give up power and to have their statues removed from public display. The statue of Lenin that you can see in today’s theme photo was taken down in 1989 when the communist dictatorship came to an end, and these days is slowly degrading behind the summer kitchen of Mogoşoaia Palace, located 10km northwest of Bucharest. It once stood in front of the House of the Press, called Casa Scânteii during communism, now the House of the Free Press. I would call this quite a change of location 🙂 The other statue that you see in the photo is of Petru Groza, the first communist ruler of Romania.

Dec 312009
 

Versiune în română

The stage for the New Year Party sponsored by Bucharest’s City Hall has already been installed in front of the Palace of Parliament, in the Constitution Square and was being tested last night when I passed by. Thousands of people are expected to attend the event and enjoy the music and the fireworks. The only drawback so far is that the weather forecast for tonight shows 20% chance of rain. I went to a New Year Party in the open air a few years ago and it was a nice experience. But this year I’ll be staying indoors and waiting for the arrival of the new year in the company of friends.

Happy New Year everyone and all the best in the new year! I see you in 2010 🙂