Well here we are another Christmas in Romania, this marks my 3rd one here since moving in September 2017 and it’s been quite an amazing adventure. If flights weren’t so expensive, I’d travel back to the US to visit with family. But also now family is here in Romania, being split between both locations.
Last year I launched a personal project called “Portrete cu Dragoste” which translates to Portraits with Love in English. It came from the idea of another project HelpPortrait, but sadly wasn’t successful my first year here in Romania as it falls on the first Saturday of December, and usually that’s the time the country celebrates their national day, which is 1 December, so everyone plans a 3-4 day weekend vacation. I had to re-evaluate and create a new strategy. Thankfully, working with The Salvation Army here I know contacts all over who are doing great charity work, and those collaborating together, as well as Romania’s best photographers. So what else could I do but combine these two groups with the same idea in mind, hence, I launched this project.
Since the start, my good friend and phenomenal photographer, Alejandro Ilukewitsch, jumped on board to be a part of it to launch in 2018. That first year was 5 photo shoots: (1.) Working with families in a village who we brought some donations too also and printed photos, seeing them so thankful was amazing, and (2. 3. & 4.) The Salvation Army in Bucharest and Ploiesti, photographing volunteers and beneficiaries they work with, and (5.) concluding with a trip to Brașov, where we photographed portraits of students sponsored by an American NGO, Hearts Across Romania, to go to university. The portraits were used for the organization to display their students sponsored as well as allow the students to have a photo they can use for their CV.
2019 led to new contacts, we worked with The Salvation Army again, who I work the majority of my time with, and donated portraits to the families who sponsored their Angel Tree at Gradinița Amicii in Constanța. Later doing a photo shoot with an animal shelter in Constanța and soon (expanding beyond the Christmas-time period) another shelter and a project training dogs for disabled people.
It’s been a great 2019, view my Instagram for highlights of the year and hopefully 2020 brings even more growth!