Photography
Angels flash photography
Jul 9th
Fulger fain
Jun 26th
De cand cu furtunile astea, intre 2 schimbari de scutece, mi-am mai incercat si eu norocul cu fotografiatul fulgerelor. Azi mi-a reusit. Tehnica nu e cine stie ce – aparat pe trepied, expunere 30′ , si mult noroc.
Fulger in Bucuresti - 25 Iunie 2009 / 22:12 (click pt full-size)
L-am lasat si pe Pyticu Piticu sa-mi foloseasca poza dar mi-a pocit pseudonimul. 
Laterd edit: Heh – am mai gasit pe CF un fratior mai mic al fulgerului de mai sus:
Facut cu cateva momente inainte de cel mare. Click pt full-size
Project PXL
Oct 7th
S-a lansat oficial revista digitala de fotografie Project PXL. Cristian Manafu strikes again si lanseaza un proiect colaborativ, o revista digitala, rasfoibila, disponibila in varianta pt PC + MAC (!), revista compusa din fotografii trimise de utilizatori/pasionati de fotografie. Am si eu o fotografie in revista si ma bucur ca se fac si chestii de genul acesta la noi. Mi-as fi dorit un pic mai mult – poate un site dedicat Project PXL unde sa pot sa imi uploadez direct imaginile si sa se poata votata imaginile care apar in revista; si de ce nu, chiar o editie tiparita a revistei – stim cu totii talentul nativ al lui Manafu de a gasi sponsori asa ca nu ma indoiesc ca ar putea exista resurse pentru asa ceva 
.
Si pentru ca nu am cum sa va arat imaginea mea din Project PXL, o sa va arat aceasi imagine submitata la JPG Mag, un proiect similar de afara, care periodic lanseaza niste teme de unde sunt alese prin votul publicului fotografiile care vor aparea in editia tiparita:
P.S. Cristi, nu ai anuntat inca castigatorul concursului de naming pentru Project PXL 
O invitatie pt urmatoarele 9 editii de Web-Club will do just fine kthxbye
Hippie weekend ahead
Jul 11th
Looking forward for work day to end and finally be able to say hello to my friends in Vama Veche, for the 1st time this year. I know it’s pretty late for a first, usually in the last years, starting from May and until September, almost every weekend was Vama Veche, Vadu or Corbu nude weekend. My friend Radu and my better half Dana are going to provide the drinks as they celebrate 27 summers. As we predict Vama Veche will be quite crowded, just as every weekend, we are excited to try and explore the soroundings, Durankulak lake and camping to be more exact – 5km from the Romanian border. Picturs bellow are from Vadu, last Sunday.
Nightlosers – what a great performance
Jun 22nd
Nightlosers performed live in Downstairs, last Wednesday and it was freaking awesome – great blues, great rock and a very clean sound. Slowly Downstairs proves it’s concert capabilities and I hope to see lots of Romanian artists on this stage. The part that nobody expected was that Ioan Gyuri Pascu, who incidentally was in the audience, stepped up on the scene and performed with Nightlosers an outstanding jam session. Hope to see them soon! Some of the pictures were taken by Matei Garici, a much more experienced photographer than I am.
May 1st – Roadtrip!
Apr 29th
I will be AFK (away from keyboard) most of this week as Dana and myself are taking a country road trip with Hawkeye . We plan to reach some of the major fortified churches from Transylvania, take some nice pictures and relax, relax, relax.
I hope to have the mood to document every old village we photograph and maybe show you on our return, a different kind of Romania.
My wife and I hooked up on May 1st 1999 and since then we promised to ourselves to do something special every year, on May 1st. And we did. Each year, we take a couple of days off only for ourselves and do something we haven’t done before. This year it’s time for a photo-story of the old Transylvanian fortified churches .
Materializing a Dream
Apr 21st
As some of you may already know from my “uber” excitement over the last few days, my wife and I are getting a new car. And this pretty darn soon. Everything happened really fast and it all began with some simple inquiries to the Honda dealer in Bucharest.
Initially I just wanted a test-drive to better check out what the Accord can do, then I learned that 2008 is the 30th anniversary of Accord and with this occasion they’ve put together the Honda Accord Special Edition. What is so special about this Special Edition? – well everything – it’s almost a full options car priced fairly, as a regular, less endowed model.
The decision trigger was the fact that they had only 2 cars left in stock, with the engine and automatic transmission that I so much desired. I instantly booked it and decided that it’s worth the effort to at least think if we can afford it. It’s not a cheap car but it’s not a premium one either. I like to think that it’s a perfect balance between build quality, comfort, options and price.
So we got it! As simple as that. I don’t have it yet but good news is that I only have to wait 2, maximum 3 days until it gets delivered. I am not going to make a big case out of this, I just wanted to brag a little bit about Webmyc’s new incoming wheels and let you know that once I get I will probably post less often on my blog, as I will get busy testing this little baby!
It’s a 2.0 litter DOHC i-VTEC gas engine, with 155 HP and 190 Nm torque and as I had to choose between royal blue and Nighthawk black pearl, I obviously got the black one. I don’t like to get too attached to material things but considering the excitement that both my wife and I feel for this new acquisition, we decided that the car deserves at least a name – so ladies and gents, please let me introduce – Hawkeye – the Webmyc Mobile
Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of Hawkeye yet obviously so what you can see in this post is the car I was handed for the test drive, a Dark Mocha one.
We are looking forward to get used to our new card and are pretty darn sure this will happen quite fast, because as somebody use to say, the Honda Accord is a car build around it’s driver and his passengers.
We are planning to get out of town next week and see more of Romania’s beauties like the old “burgs” from Transylvania and take our time to get acquainted with Hawkeye
Of course, it’s a huge step forward from our current Skoda Fabia, a car the served us for almost 7 years and drove us to wonderful places in Romania and Europe.
The Fabia has to go. We don’t need 2 cars and we cannot afford both anyway (gas, insurance, etc) so after I cool down a little bit I will put some time in improving the commercial aspect of our old but very nice car. It just needs a thorough inside clean and a paint polish but if you’re interested and are willing to do this on your own, just feel free to contact me. It’s a a metallic green 2001 1,4 MPI Skoda Fabia with less than 71.000km and I am willing to let it go for a really decent price.
As a closure I would like to give credit to my wife for a very smart reasoning: “If only you could put the same passion, drive and ambition that you’ve put in finding the means to get this car so fast, in everything you do, we would definitely get to live the life we dream about faster and less painfully”.
PicLens – must have browser add-on for photo enthusiasts
Mar 26th
I just came across this great browser add-on via Google Operating System.
PicLens is compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari and enables you to browse full-screen through the pictures from a website, in 3D!
It will enhance your Flickr/Picasa (and many more – see bellow) browsing experience into an interactive full-screen slide show that enables you to quickly find the picture you are looking for and go to that picture’s page. You can see on the right how my HDR Flickr Set looks when using PicLens.
Our new interactive "3D Wall" lets you effortlessly drag, click, and zoom your way around a wall of pictures for an extraordinary, full-screen viewing experience. Why mundanely flip through online photo galleries or squint at thumbnails from Google Image Search when you can fly through an immersive, full-screen experience instead?
Here’s a list of the sites fully supported by PicLens. Theoretically the add-on should work on any pictures site that is structured in such a way that can be understood by PicLens.
| Photo Sites | Social Networking | Image Search | Webhosts/Galleries |
| Flickr Photobucket Picasa Web Albums Fotki FotoTime deviantART Smugmug |
Facebook MySpace Bebo Hi5 Friendster |
Google Images Yahoo Images Ask Images Live Images AOL Images |
Freewebs Adobe Lightroom |
Countryside HDR
Mar 24th
This Saturday we visited my wife’s grandmother, at 80km from Bucharest, in picturesque village of Grindasi, Romania. Could not resist the temptation to try out more the HDR technique, and this part of what I manage to process, since our return.
