Anastasia – 20 years since I started the project

It’s October, and as you surely know, it’s the month I usually meet Anastasia Olaru for our annual portrait, so here it is. This time, we have an anniversary edition, as it’s been 20 years since we started the project.

Everything started 20 years ago, in October 2003, when a very young Anastasia entered my studio for the first time. On that occasion, I made her a portrait without having a project in mind. Luckily, as a coincidence, Anastasia came to my studio again the following October, in 2004, and I took her a second portrait similar to the first one. From that moment, it was clear that this could be a long-term project, so we decided to meet each other again every October for as long as possible, annually repeating our portrait and adding new images to this set.

It is worth knowing that Anastasia decides her look in the images; she uses her styling and makeup and chooses the final image from the pictures I shoot. Of course, I’m fixing the light, frame, and overall composition, but the photo portrays Anastasia as she wants, on her terms and values. I believe this approach objectively highlights Anastasia’s journey from a child to an adult. Even though it started as a portrait photographic experiment, this project became, I believe, a speech about the passing of time and especially about the emotional aspects of it. I feel like there is a context to document the effects of time in a very subtle way.

As a side story, we did the most challenging picture three years ago, in October 2020. As you probably remember, our meeting then was “special” due to the travel restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic forced us to adopt a different strategy, a “remote” photo session (me in Bucharest and Anastasia in London, where she lives), as it was impossible to meet her in person with so many restrictions and quarantines. Except for that year, I met Anastasia in my studio, so the project is again on its natural course, face-to-face, as it is supposed to be.

Please check all the pictures from the series below, and “like it” if you like it.