Ana Maria Prelipcean
a photographer who want to see inside the people
My photos are like an “exorcism” for my fears and my demons. I want my photos to have a feeling, to be touchable, to be like little rooms with a lot of keys, like a puzzle.
My name is Ana Maria Prelipcean, based in Bucharest, Romania and I don’t call myself a photographer, but a woman who loves to take pictures. I discovered film photography when I was studying Journalism, back in the 90s and even if after graduation I put the camera away, focusing only on words, my interest in images didn’t disappear. After a very long period of time, in 2017, I bought a digital Canon, took several photography courses and allowed this passion to be part of my everyday life.
I never leave the house without my camera and even if I don’t get a picture at the end of the day, I train my eye to pay attention to all the details and gestures on the streets. Over the last few years I’ve been wandering the streets of Europe, trying, like a hunter, to catch light and shadows, the lines and the contrasts of the cities.
I prefer black and white because they help me capture the nostalgia, sometimes the sadness of the everyday life, those emotions and surrealism of the streets. I like textures, double exposures, slow shutter speeds, all those ingredients that make a picture seem out of this world. For me it’s very important to see “inside” people, inside their souls. I am thirsty for that raw and cruel feeling of touching something I maybe don’t like but I want to experience. So, my photos are like an “exorcism” for my fears and my demons. I want my photos to have a feeling, to be touchable, to be like little rooms with a lot of keys, like a puzzle.
Over the last few years I’ve been exhibited in Romania (Bucharest and Cluj) and at the end of 2022, I’ll be part of the Women Street Photographers Exhibition in Hyderabad, India.
As I’ve said, the street is my canvas for my images but I don’t shoot everything I see (I don’t take pictures of homeless people, I avoid situations that can make someone feel uncomfortable, for ex) because I give people respect. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve never had any confrontations.
As gear, my friends are Canon EOS 6D MK1 with Sigma 35mm, and Olympus OMD5. I always shoot in Manual mode, RAW format because I want to control everything in the picture.
