I´m Raluca, a fine-art self-taught Romanian visual artist based in Brussels. In 2009 I received my camera as a present and I started to use it as a method for understanding the world and developing my personality. As a psychologist I was always amazed of how people perceive and integrate their experiences. I began as everyone does, with landscapes and still life shots.
After some time I started to see the beauty of human gestures, poses and mimics so I began to shoot body parts. Now, I work portraits and fine-art images. Since I started to use my camera I was caught up in a wonderful journey of interpreting the world and giving it different meanings, of inner searching and outer expressing my ideas, of connecting with interesting people and their stories.
Through this images I want to depict a different world, the inner world of a person with its beauty, melancholy, dreams and wishes. I would have liked to be born somewhere in the past; that’s why my images have that “once” and “somewhere else” look. We live in a world where technology simplifies our life too much; through my works I invite you to run away with me in places full of magic, poems, hope, melancholy, patience, innocence, fear, darkness.
I love the metamorphosis of the person who sits in front of the camera. Although at first the model may seem shy and indecisive, not satisfied with her/his looks, not knowing what posture to use, at the end of every shooting the model shows a different state of mind: more confidence and joy, a wonderful positive energy. In front of the camera she/he discovers herself/himself in a special light, realizing that she/he can become anything she/he wants that she/he can tell us things without a word, just by a glance and a gesture.
I haven’t yet define my style and I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for me to explore; as I said, I use photography as a very personal approach to reality and everything around me so my style changes as I change and as I move through life.
What have I accomplished till now with my work? Well, I had some several group and personal exhibitions in Bucharest/Romania of which I am very proud. I work with some publishing houses (Isla Negra in Puerto Rico and Trevillion Images/London) that use some of my images for book covers. After my moving to Brussels I was invited to present my portfolio at the Viewfinders photography club and also to be a judge for their internal competition called Dreams.
Last year I started to participate in international photography contests and my works seem to have been really appreciated. I won: 2nd prize in Monochrome Photography Awards, 2014, Amateur, Category – People; Honorable Mention in Portrait and Nominee in Fine Art – International Color Awards – 8th edition; Honorable Mention in Fine Art: Portrait – ND Photography Awards; Honorable Mention in Fine Art: Abstract – ND Photography Awards.
In present I’ve started my first personal project that will connect photography with psychology and I hope the results will be interesting. I’ve seen a lot of photography projects that have tried to depict psychological aspects but with sooo simple idea; humans aren’t that easy to discover. I will try to give it a more complex view. [Official Website]
