Today has been quite a day! It started off well, I got to sleep in quite a bit. Then it got better …I got to use car to deliver Laura the photos from her photo session with her boyfriend. Then things continued well, I was going to watch a movie with my friend Ashley before picking dad up from work …when disaster struck. Or more precisely my now obvious lack of skill when it comes to driving in winter on extremely slippery roads. I’m going to say extremely slippery in order to make myself look better, because …here’s what happened:

Picture this: A very happy and glad Stefan, because he’s had his 8 o’clock coffee (PM that is, for you 24 hour clock people, that’s 20:00 hours), on his way to watch Matrix 2 Reloaded or Amelie, at his friend’s house, backing out of his driveway, driving around the corner and deciding to slow down as the road was a slight downhill and at the end of it an intersection with a STOP sign. Now continue imagining this Stefan innocently and naively, yet quite wrongly, thinking that in order to slow the car down on a slippery downhill slope, he should press the brakes. WRONG! In fact it was so wrong that the car ended up changing it’s angle of pointing, now pointing < begin army talk > towards 10 o’clock < / end of army talk> yet still proceeding straight on, in fact gaining speed.

Within those split seconds, the thoughts “Uh Oh, this is not good …what do I do now …” came to mind. But then rudely interrupted by a brief bump caused by a small tree in front of someone’s house that happened to be in the way of my car’s sliding. As things came to a stop, I noticed I was sitting, still in my car, the front of which was now pointing towards the neighbour’s house, completely perpendicular to the road. I got out to check the damage, awaiting to see the side of the car in pieces laying around in the snow. Instead I am surprised to strive as hard as I can to notice some damage on the car, yet unable to find any, except for half of a small tree sticking out from underneath the front of my car. Quite amazing, these Chevrolet Cavaliers are TANKS! (Here’s divine intervention nr 1)

With great reluctance I called my dad to inform him about the slight misfortune that happened to his car. Then immediately after, my friend Merv Keyes, who besides being one of the best known DJs in Kitchener/Waterloo, owner of Magic Tunes Entertainment, has also been a car mechanic in his youth and who, thank God, was not busy and agreed to come and take a look at my situation.

Long story short, Merv comes and in spite of my unsuccessful trials of getting the car out, manages to get it out of the snow and from over the tree by just reversing and me pushing. I thought it was going to need some serious towing. (Divine intervention nr 2)

Both of us happy that things went well, I knocked on the house owner’s door to let him know that I’ve killed his tree and that I would be more than willing to replace it in case the city doesn’t. The neighbour did not seem too displeased or angry or even upset, in spite of me waking him from his sleep (I think). But just when I thought I could get away, two police cars show up. “Now I’m in trouble,” I thought. Now in order to bring in Divine intervention nr 3, I will ask you, what are the odds that the random cop that ended up taking the call (I’m saying the call because I’m assuming someone in the neighbourhood noticed what happened and called 911), would be none other than the only guy working on the Kitchener/Waterloo police force that I happen to know? Indeed it was him, which made me feel way more relaxed about the situation …within the boundries of how relaxed I possibly could feel after having done such terrible act as killing someone’s innocent tree.

Thank God, in the end, I did not get charged, the car has little-to-no visible damage, the owner of the house is not upset, the police officer told me I am not likely to get in trouble with the city, I even got to meet two old friends that I haven’t seen in a long time (in spite of the dislikable situation) and dad has been successfully been picked up from work on time. PHEW! What a day!

Here’s some images that I took at the scene of the crime!

I met the Anthony family through a photographer friend, Marko Kovacevic, one day this last summer as we met to discuss photography Downtown Kitchener. They were with him over at the Kitchener Children’s Museum watching an event when I joined in. One topic led to another and eventually we found ourselves talking about family portraits. Of course I right away mentioned I am a photographer and offered my services to them.

A few months later, around Christmas 2009 (it sounds so long ago when really it was less then 20 days ago) they contacted me asking about booking a day for a photography session with me. And the rest is history.

I must say that photography has influenced my life in many ways, art often making it easier for one to see past the shroud of the material world and glimpse into universal truth, but today I will not get into those kinds of things …today I will just say how photography taught me to appreciate winter. I know I live in Canada, and I very much love this wonderful country which is a now a home to me, but, I am not a fan of the cold and I do not hold it as predictable that that would change any time soon. I like the warmth of summer. I also enjoy the romantic and artsy breezy edge of autumn, but that is about as far as my liking for the cold goes. So naturally I never was much of a fan of winter… until recently I noticed what awesome artwork can come out of the warm of a family’s love melting the icy breath of the South Ontario January air. Without further ado, here is the Anthony Family!

Posted in portraits, Uncategorized | Tagged |

Welcome everybody to 2010. A bit later than most people, but finally do even I realize, “WOW! We’ve just successfully completed the first decade of the 21st century. Yay to us!” …or more like yay to procrastination, because we don’t seem much closer to solving either world hunger, or the pollution problem. Photography-wise, however, the new year started great! The other day I joined a few Kitchener Photographers, Rich Starnaman, Sarah Lisk as well as some of my all time favourite models, Meghan, David and Daniel on 2010’s first photomeet. We had a great time and apart from taking photos, we did a little workshop, talking about RAW PHOTOGRAPHY.

RAW PHOTOGRAPHY

Raw Photography is one of those secret weapons of a photographer, that are really not secret at all, yet many photographers don’t know about. You can view the entire slideshow presentation that I put together for this topic, here in PDF format! Have fun with it and do not hesitate to ask me any questions about it.

Posted in meets, street |

Yes you read right! The Olympic flame was in downtown Kitchener tonight and I was there to see it! I can’t believe it. Yes I know you may say that this is not that big of a deal and from the photo you will see below it doesn’t look like anything all that magnificent but let me explain.

I was born in Timisoara, Romania in the mid 1980s. That was a small town in Eastern Europe from where I got to watch numerous …well 4 sets of olympic games, well 3 that I can actually remember anything of. It was not the kind of place where one would expect them to be taking place.

Now, if one is to look at things and flick the “abstract thinking” switch to ON, then one can not deny that the Olympic flame is quite a cool thing. I mean come on …it’s been a symbolic fire burning …*checks Wikipedia*…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Flame as a symbol for peace since …well a very long time.

Whatever your opinion is in the end, I’d like to say that even though it was cold outside, and there were way too many people there in order to get a good look at anything, I am not sorry that I went. Who knows when the next time will be when the Olympic Flame gets run through the city I live in. I don’t feel like it was a waste at all. Alright, enjoy the images!