On Assignment again for Bloomberg News in Bucharest on 2/14

On the street in the posh Dorobanti neighborhood.



A store empty of shoppers on Calea Victoriei, Bucharest's 5th Avenue.

I am doing some street shooting to document the worsening financial crisis here.

On Assignment for Bloomberg News in Bucharest on 2/11

The Romanian Leu is at a record low against the Euro and US dollar and so I made pictures around this topic. Read about the worsening Eastern European financial crisis here.

Representation by Wonderful Machine in the US

I have accepted the offer by Wonderful Machine and am now represented by them in the US. Anzenberger continues to represent me everywhere else in the world.

On assignment for the NGO Ovidiu Rom outside Bucharest

Today I was privileged to tag along in the field with the charming Nadia and Dana from Leslie Hawke's (the American actor Ethan's mother) NGO called Ovidiu Rom which seeks to help put impoverished Romanian children in school. We drove outside Bucharest to the small village of Vizuresti and spent the day teaching kindergarteners as well as knocking on doors and speaking with parents in the hopes of getting their children to come to school. Leslie came to Romania first in 2000 with the Peace Corps and then started Ovidiu Rom in 2001. She is doing humanitarian work of the first order. It was truly a joy to participate. Here are a few images and the larger edit can be seen here.



Nadia makes house calls.



Dana plays with the kindergarteners.



A Roma child.
























Dana and Nadia discussing on our way out of Vizuresti.

Ceausescu's Birthday

Today, Nicolae Ceausescu would have been 91. I went to Ghencea Cemetery here in central Bucharest where he and his wife Elena are buried. Amidst the rain in the course of an hour I saw three Romanian tourist men come to see the Ceausescu graves as well as a couple who were younger than me who affixed a brand new name plate to Elena's grave. This totally astounded me as I expected to only see nostalgic pensioners. When I asked the guy if it was better under Ceausescu (as he obviously thought it was) he said that capitalism is criminal. I laughed all the time thinking that his girl wouldn't have her purse or jeans or that coat she was wearing had it not been for Ceausescu's overthrow. I wanted to ask him, 'oh, ok, so Communist blocs and streets without drains and thousands of stray dogs and paranoid citizens and censorship and a closed border and no abortion rights etc. etc. etc. all made Romania better than a free and open society where at least there is the potential for change!?' When I see a couple like this I realize just how backward Romania can be. For me it was funny to be staring at Ceausescu's diminutive grave and be thinking that for most of the hour, I, an American, was the only one in the company of the ruthless dictator who had wrought such destruction on Romania and the Romanian psyche. I am sure that he could never have imagined that in 2009, on his birthday, the only person around would be some American!

Invitation to join Wonderful Machine

I've been invited to join Wonderful Machine for US representation! Currently Anzenberger represents me everywhere else.

Contract to photograph for the American Chamber of Commerce in Bucharest

The assignment went well yesterday on the streets of Bucharest even if the paranoia of Communism still lingers. Today, I met with the American-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and have negotiated a deal to photograph their occasional events.