About a Photo: Taranului

Slowly, on a rattling railway from Cluj in the Carpathian Mountains, I journeyed through Transylvania. After passing the plains, desolate in January winter, the foothills started to push up, giving texture to the barrenness.

It was the start of 2008 when my photography started to change. Before that, I only shot Holga as I learned the form. I wanted then to take romantic shots, even loving cliche, of French writing on the archways of Avignon, or Eiffel Tower in the distance of rooftops. Things changed in me, I was hurt and I lost that simple wonder and found a new dimension, looking for joy, and understanding that joy can be a dark emotion.

At a second hand shop, I picked up a Voigtländer Vito camera whose timed-shutter release had been jammed. I forced it open and suddenly the camera worked again. It was my magical camera — a rangefinder with nothing in its favor. I took it with me to Romania, opened the aperture as wide as it would go, and shot the blackest, most blown-out negatives I could from the window of a crawling train.

A shepherd is moving through the hills with his flock. I take the shot. Reeds and grass blur into wind against him. Stones of the mountain lose context and abstract themselves like a constellation over his head. We are pushing towards something: a joy at the end of all things.