Through sheer discipline, determination and a lot of hard work, Catalin Rudolf is bringing the joy of photography and film-making to many people through an innovative project he launched in Romania twelve years ago.
Now based in the rustic Black Sea village of 2 Mai, Catalin’s passion for the visual arts is palpable as he stood on stage this weekend to open the 9-day-long Photo Trends Festival, of which he is director. The festival features seminars, workshops and master classes.
When asked what would make him happy about the festival this year Catalin said, “First and foremost, for everyone to have fun doing what they love doing best, creating stories with images. Secondly, I’m happy my colleagues and I can offer participants the best and latest of equipment to try which, due to high cost, they probably wouldn’t have access to normally. Thirdly, for participants to enjoy being guided and advised by some of the leading photo and film experts in the world. And lastly, for everyone to benefit from the golden networking opportunities at the festival.”
Then, with a smile, he added, “As for myself, I’m happy when my wife’s happy. I simply couldn’t organise this festival without Andrea’s help.”
First guest speaker was Norwegian newspaper photographer and editor, Olav Urdahl, who talked about how best to organise photo projects, presenting examples from various photographers on a stage screen. The examples ranged from a pictorial study of a nomad tribe in Nepal to people asleep in various locations worldwide and a pictorial depiction of artefacts of natural history museum being moved from one location to another.
Olav’s presentation also included some of his own work featuring his own canoe photographed in different locations throughout Norway and a poignant photo-story about a father taking care of his prematurely-born child who needed oxygen supply to survive.
Other speakers are Joel Santos from Portugal who focuses on travel and documentary photography; Jens Krauer from Switzerland whose lecture is entitled ‘Candid & Street Photography;’ and Romanian Andrei Neagu who focuses on architecture, describing a project in which he captured images of some of Bucharest’s most historic buildings. Others include Vlad Eftenie, Paul Paun, Stefan Dinu, Cornel Lazia, Marius Florea, Nicolae Cosniceru, Vlad Cioplea, Catalin Beldea, Cristian Crisbasan and Mihnea Ratte. Film workshops include those hosted by Jean Blagoi and Razvan Ionita.
Mayor of 2 Mai, Gheorghe Daniel Georgescu, welcomed the festival saying it was a unique event that attracted many people from different backgrounds and age groups and created a lot of excitement in the arts festival field.
Highlighting the festival, in front of the Cultural Center on the main street of 2 Mai is an exhibition of vivid war photography by Vadim Ghirda. At the back of the center and along the road to the nearby beach are other excellent photographic displays including one entitled ‘Exhibition from A Bag’ because photographer Radu Barla had found the rolls of film in a bag at a garage sale. These turned out to be portraits of well-known Romanian actors and actresses.
Other exhibitions reflect the fine photo skills of Cioplea, Florin Ghioca, Crisbasan, Galia Dan, Andrei Tudose, Sabina Suru, Andrei Apostol and Florian Marin.
The Photo Trends Festival is on this week and is sponsored by Panasonic, Canon and Broadcast solutions.
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