Florin Ghioca

There is a moment at the end of summer, when the sea, the sun and the beer in Vama Veche are not just for fun. If to the above it is added a drop of passion, many photographers and beautiful crazy fellows who who tag along for more than a week, then the most famous festival in Romania, VSLO, is born.

If at the first edition we were all younger, most of us more fit and certainly less trained than we are today, well, a few years later I learned a lot along with the festival. I also learned product, fashion, wedding or portrait, car or wildlife, street or night photography. Then we learned to make a documentary film.

We had fun playing drums, and on their rhythm we noticed how beautiful is to paint at the shore of the sea and how spectacular can be the sculptures made from the stones in it. We learned what it means to take pictures not only under the burning sun, but also in areas of war. We have learned the art of theater and acting, listening to the music of the artists we loved and singing until late at night.

VSLO does not mean just learning. It’s not just meeting the “photographers community”. VSLO means people who, regardless of the time of night or day, of the effort and failure, they find the power for a natural smile that only occurs when they do what they do with pleasure. In fact, that’s what VSLO is all about. About the pleasure of photographing a naked body, curved in the waves of the sea,  about the pleasure of having a cold beer, in the company of forign people who sometimes have a Romanian soul more then Dan Puric has! Hehe. About the pleasure of the discovery. About the morning omelette pleasure served at the first courses, the pleasure of coffee – blessed be, about the anchovies photographed with a macro camera taken from the carring sponsors, who are putting the greatest army of cameras ever seen by us.

VSLO is about giving, altruism and kindness. The good deeds were an opportunity for enrollment, just as the good good deed was called the organization of the only such festival in Romania with gra-tu-i-ti participation. Does it seem a little? Does it seem cheap? It’s not. Because here came big names in the field of cinematography or photography, people who crossed countries, oceans or continents to get to the former fishing village on the Black Sea, where for years – a handful of people stubbornly to believe in friendships, in passions that gather together people and walk them like a Salvamar boat to shore, at the end of which, admiring the after-VSLO exhibitions people say, “Yes, ma’am, it was worth it!”

If after all there is a THANK YOU, it means that the purpose of the festival has been reached.

Personally, I tried to show the participants the less accessible and uncomfortable world of photography in conflict zones, I simulated real combat and photo situations under the gun, I tested the bulletproof vestments and swallowed the dust of the ruins. Then, in a few years, I told about theater photography, moving from the theaters of operations to those with actors, reflectors and expressive photographs.

At the end of this road, participants do not have to try do such photos. But they certainly go away learning something, a new thing, maybe a good thing.

In front of all those who honored me with ther presence, in front of my colleagues lecturers, but especially in front of the beautiful crazy people who had prepared so much VSLO – I bow!