Amos Chapple has written an article for RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty about Romanian photographer Mihnea Turcu. Turcu worked in banking in Bucharest but decided to give up the rat race in 2013 to pursue photography full time. This came about because of a visit he made in 2009 to an elderly gentleman living in Maramureș, described only as a ‘pixie-like villager’ (an apt description judging by his portrait).
The pair talked about life and
spirituality, a conversation which prompted a change of direction for
Turcu. Already interested in taking
photographs in rural areas, quitting his office job led to a more fulfilling
career combining commercial work to pay the bills with forays into the Romanian
countryside to record the changing way of life.
He gained a great deal of recognition
after he changed his strategy on Instagram in the autumn of 2021, moving from
only posting what he considered his most accomplished technical images to
treating social media as a kind of journal, including everything that meant
something to him irrespective of quality, and adding commentary expanding on
the photographs to bring out not only their meaning but the emotional
impact. This contextualisation adds a
great deal to the value of the pictures.
Chapple notes that Turcu looks at all
aspects of rustic life, its beauty and the deprivation, old customs hanging on,
deep faith, the elderly left behind as young people migrate away. He adds that the pictures are popular with
the Romanian diaspora which left these areas for economic reasons, which is
understandable as they are so evocative – though Turcu is pitching at an
international audience on Instagram by writing his captions in English (albeit
many of the comments are in Romanian).
There is a close engagement with his
subjects, to the extent of being able to coax elderly ladies into revealing
their ages, probably quite a feat. Some
individuals hold frames full of old family photographs, or of their younger
selves, providing a poignant glimpse of their histories. The overwhelming attributes he captures are
toughness, dignity and humour. As well
as Romanians, he has photographed Ukrainians living near the border with
Ukraine, not a community that features much in work made in Romania.
Sadly the ‘pixie-like villager died in
January 2023, aged 99, but Turcu plans to produce a book based on the
photographs he took and conversations they shared, seeing his death as
emblematic of the loss of close knowledge of the natural world that
depopulation brings with it. If he does,
perhaps we will learn the villager’s name.
Looking through Turcu’s Instagram account, it must be said that he made
a good decision when he left the world of banking to do something useful with
his life.
Turcu not only photographs the rural areas
of Romania, he has also recorded beach life at Vama Veche, a resort on the
Black Sea coast near Constanța, which he has been visiting since 1999. Judging from his photographs and Lavinia
Dragomir’s commentary, it has developed from a peaceful, rather hippyish,
retreat in which to commune with nature into a busier resort possessing a more
commercialised vibe, with music, stalls, and tents crowded together on the
beach.
References
Chapple, Amos. ‘Romance And Realism: The
Former Banker Photographing Rural Romania’, RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty,
28 January 2023. https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-rural-photographer-mihnea-turcu-instagram/32240985.html
Dragomir, Lavinia. ‘Mihnea Turcu,
fotograful care regăseşte Vama Veche în privirile oamenilor’ (’Mihnea Turcu,
the photographer who finds Vama Veche in people's eyes’), Europa FM, 7 August 2017. https://www.europafm.ro/mihnea-turcu-fotograful-care-regaseste-vama-veche-in-privirile-oamenilor-galerie-foto/
Minhea Turcu on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mihnea__turcu/
