Claudia Curici Photography
Exploring my passion for photography
Time travel. Den Gamle By
‘Den Gamle By’ is one of the most impressive museums I have ever visited. It is an open air ‘Old Town’ museum in Aarhus, Denmark, where staff are working in the roles of town figures. Everything it’s so well staged to the finest details, that I would call it a mind-blowing time capsule – at least from what I’ve seen so far. Below is a collection of black and white images from the oldest part of the museum. I noticed how houses in Denmark are built to let the light in and the museum buildings didn’t disappoint. I’ve left out from this post the part that was to me the most touching and inspiring, the 1970’s – I think many countries are ignoring their most recent history missing out on a significant way to connect with their younger population. I am particularly thinking here of Romania – but hopefully I’ll come back to that topic and with few images in a different post.
More about the museum here.
9/11. Reflections
When I checked this week’s WordPress challenge, Mirror, I immediately knew what I want to share. I would say reflections are my ‘speciality’, I have so many photos on this theme that would be difficult to choose if we weren’t so close to 9/11. Plus, this picture has never been shared on the blog, so this is the perfect opportunity.
This photo was made in New York in December last year, while visiting the 9/11 memorial. What really stroke me that day were the many people who were taking funny selfies at the memorial, forgetting somehow the place’s significance. I wanted to make an image that was different from everything else you usually see from the memorial, when I saw the reflection in the memorial’s pool. I knew this was the shot.
I clearly remember the day in 2001, because 9/11 it happens to also be my sister’s birthday. We were eating birthday cake in my hometown, Targu-Jiu, when we heard the news on the radio. I barely knew what the World Trade Center was at the time. Almost 15 years later I’m writing this post from an airport in Berlin.
❤
Copenhagen Nyhavn
Bucharest is just 3.5h flight away from Billund Airport in Denmark, but my travel arrangements added a total a 10h layovers in airports 🙂 Meanwhile enjoying some soul music, and looking at pictures from my first trip to Denmark. Here Copenhagen Nyhavn, probably the most photographed placed in the country.
The Play of the Imagination and The Wheel of Life
‘The Play of The Imagination around the Wheel of Life’ is a glazed ceramic tiles monumental decoration by Carl-Henning Pedersen, in Herning, a small town in central Denmark, famous for its textile industry. The Danish artist was invited by shirt manufacturer Aage Damgaard, in 1960, to decorate the inner courtyard of his new factory, Angli. When Carl-Henning Pedersen died in 2007, his urn was buried in the courtyard. The art is freely accessible to the public.
Today is my last day in Denmark and feeling quite sad to leave this country where I feel like home. I’m heading to Romania now but will keep posting small collections of photos from Denmark, maybe even tomorrow when my layovers will make my trip as long as if I was going to the US – so plenty of time in airport lounges 🙂
ARoS
Museums are a great way to understand a city, a place or a country, and museums in Denmark don’t disappoint. I’ve been traveling lately and although I am making pictures everywhere I go (and try to keep my Instagram feed updated), I get lazy when it comes to posting on the blog. 🙂 But today I am too excited to share this small collection of photos made at ARoS Museum in Aarhus this afternoon. I have much more coming this way; despite being such a small country, Denmark is fascinating.
Summer clouds
“The clouds looked like silent travelers headed for the edge of the earth.”
— Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)
Clouds must be one of my favorite things to photograph. I remember when I was a child I would stare at the sky for hours and identify shapes in the clouds. In the evenings I would lay down in the garden (during summer, at my grandparents’) and watch the stars and imagine all kind of beautiful stories. At 37, my head is still in the clouds and during a day like yesterday in Dallas, I barely look down or in front of me.
These are some of the images I made yesterday, a 360 degree view of the Dallas sky, with both my X-T1 and a 56mm lens (85mm) and my x100S. They are processed in Lightroom with one of my favorites film simulations I use for Texas sky, Fuji FP – 100C Negative from VSCO. I don’t mind the clean look of a sky and I usually process them in two versions, one clean and one film simulation, but the film simulation speaks more to my heart; it feels more familiar with that feeling from childhood and my teenage years when the sky was my escape.
Heroes
I made these images while waiting for President Obama to attend the memorial organized in honor of the Dallas Police slain officers. This little guy was hoping to see the President, and obviously, he had an idea about what had happened on July 7 in Dallas.
For Romanian fellows, I’m posting this while listening to Guess Who – Locul potrivit.
About new beginnings
Wow! It’s been 19 days since I published my previous post, that’s the longest time I’ve been absent from the blog. This is not because I ran out of photos, or I haven’t photographed anything later, but I’ve been feeling slightly confused, and I honestly didn’t know if I should continue or not with the blog. I just realized this week marks the second anniversary of this blog (I started on August 6, 2014).
Since then many things happened. Have learned so many things about photography that now I take for granted (and I still feel like I need a lifetime to learn what’s left), have settled with Fujifilm cameras as my working gear, moved from Dubai to Dallas and hence quit my PR job, and once established in Dallas I decided to do a career change and become a professional photographer. I have attended lots of workshops and photography events, I met incredible artists and photographers who inspired and taught me, I read countless articles about photography, I got a Texas sales and tax permit so I can officially start taking jobs in the US.
Although I’m an open and (I think) adventurous person, doing a career change at 36 is not, I came to discover, to be taken lightly. You go from something you were good at and have been doing for a long time (and dare I say you were paid for it) to something where you have to learn everything from the scratch. You are the beginner. You are no longer someone who’s got the experience. I struggle. It’s hard. But there is nothing else I would rather do. This is for me a rebirth. I haven’t told this story that much, but there was a moment in my life when, if certain things didn’t happen, my life would had been completely different. I started to take photography classes in University but after just few classes a fire happened at the Lab and everything was suspended. I had just managed to develop my first few photos (yes, it was the film time). I don’t remember details, but I remember the joy I had when being in that class, going with the camera on photowalks or developing my first photo (It was a black and white portrait of an old man dressed in Romanian traditional clothes).
I don’t want to make this post too long, I just felt like documenting this moment in my life here. I had been wondering if the blog is still relevant in my life right now, and I’ve came to the conclusion that I’d love to continue to share my journey. So hopefully, I’ll be back to my normal posting schedule. 🙂
I’d like to hear from you if you’ve been through a career change and started from zero, how did you manage?
Two portraits I made yesterday.
Bastille Dallas
Yesterday in Dallas.
Study of light with a hydrangea
Pour La France ❤
Claudia Curici Photography 