Instinctively, I really like photographing places, situations and characters in completely natural, non-directed conditions. In a way, I like to select from the amalgam of untouched events that particular thing which heralds their uniqueness. In this way, my portfolios have a documentary side. Since my closeness to photography up to merging with it took place in stock photography, I had to change my photo-shooting strategy a bit. Stock photography is actually an extremely competitive form of commercial photography. To get results you have to constantly adapt to ever-changing rules and trends and you have to maintain a top technical level. The technology itself is constantly changing at an astonishing rate. In order to generate competitive commercial images, it is necessary to approach other more conceptual shooting styles, in which the directing of the scenes is needed. In this way, the studio photography, additional light sources, the creation of photographic stories very carefully designed with models just as passionate as you about what they do, become almost a way of life.

So, in order to be able to continue, I found myself at cross-roads, between how I felt and what I had to do to get results. The solution I found to overcome this deadlock was to combine the two photo-shooting strategies. Therefore, I never completely gave up my natural way of photographing “in a documentary way”, but I got very close to both studio and directed photography. I like to call the latest,  “the filmic style” because the way it is done is similar to what happens when you actually make a movie, of course,  maintaining   proportions.

I had periods when, on the street or in nature somewhere, I photographed as I felt it right, instinctively. At the same time, however, I was loaded with ideas that I then tried to conceptualize and turn into stock images when I was in the studio or during carefully prepared photo sessions. And the vice-versa tended to happen as well:. when I was shooting for stock, I gathered other ideas, which I then turned into “my instinctive documentary style.”

And so, my stock portfolio stems from two photographic approaches to reality. I think it shows a little the result of this duality that drives specificity and which, perhaps, is one of the secrets of my longevity in this world of stock photography. It is extremely competitive, unstable, constantly changing, which in time leads quite easily to abandonment. Not in my case.

This image, made in Romania, in the Trascău Mountains, dates from the times when duality had become the backbone of my workflow. I combined a normal activity for me, hiking in the mountains, with the rigors of commercial images

A hiker looks at the map while on the path in the Apuseni Mountains in Transylvania, Romania.

and the result was a series of authentic images. This concept of “authentic images” has become a real trend lately in total contradiction with what was happening in the early years of stock photography and microstock. “Authentic images” are those commercial images that present a real situation that does not seem at all directed, but natural.

The feature of this image is a bit retro due to the presence of the classic paper map. However, it was one of the most searched images of those series. The series also contain images in which modern guidance products are present. In this world full of technology and modernity there is sometimes a need to return to classic even if, in the case of commercial photography it is more to emphasize the progress of the modern against the old.

In addition to modern ideas, there is a kind of overproduction of pictures in a short time, and “outdated” situations remain a bit forgotten and thus actually create a niche with few images, which turns out to be beneficial for the portfolio.