"Face to Face – The Portrait" – the star of the 14th edition of the "Places Near Us" Photography Festival-Competition, founded by university lecturer Dr. Lavinia Hulea and photographer Petrișor Crăciunoiu.
The Student Culture House of Petroșani, in partnership with the Faculty of Arts and Design / West University of Timișoara, successfully organized the 14th edition of the photography festival-competition "Places Near Us". The event, a landmark in the cultural landscape, celebrated the art of photography again this year, attracting significant interest.
This year's theme: "Face to Face - Portrait" and an impressive participation!
This year’s edition invited young people (students and pupils) to explore and convey the emotion and story behind the portrait. Competitors were encouraged to go beyond the simple recording of physical features, focusing on direct visual dialogue. The photographs presented revealed the complexity of the human face, capturing states, identities and interactions, whether they were introspective self-portraits, family portraits that evoke intimacy or captivating snapshots that capture the essence of an unknown. The theme provoked a deep analysis of the subject, transforming each image into a window into the soul of the portrayed.
Interest in the competition was high, with 109 participants registered (of which 105 were students) and over 200 photographers competing for the prizes of this edition, which highlighted the participation of both students and pupils.
The winning photos:
• Student section: 1st place: The Second Pulse, author Ana POPA, 2nd place: An Echo That Never Reached, author Antonia APOSTOL, 3rd place: Scream, author Cristina Ioana LUNGU, mentions: Becoming, author Maia CIUCUR, Dom, author Andrada CHERSA.
• Student section: 1st Place: The Art of Facial Expression, author Naomi OANCEA, 2nd Place: Memories 2, author Andreea FUNAR, 3rd Place: Wrinkles of Time, author: Maya BOJA, mentions: Memories 1, author: Andreea FUNAR, Faces of Color, author Maya BOJA.
The collective exhibition will present the winning photographs as well as a number of approximately 30 photographs selected from those participating in the contest, and will be viewable between 28.11 - 7.12.2025, at the Student Culture House in Petroșani.
The exhibition "Imago. Visions in Transition", a dual edition
The Gallery of the Petroșani Student Culture House hosted the exhibition again this year. Imago. Visions in Transition, 8th edition, which brings together works created through two of the most poetic and sensitive processes of analog imaging: cyanotype and photogram. In a world dominated by screens, these techniques bring attention back to the manual gesture, to the laboratory as a space of exploration, and to the image as a unique object, emerging from a direct dialogue with light.
In the exhibited photographs, one feels the natural curiosity of the beginning: the students test shapes, transparencies, fragments of nature, ordinary objects or fragments of the body. Everything becomes potential visual material, and the paper covered with photosensitive solutions becomes the terrain on which the light leaves its mark. Each image is the result of a process in which time, intuition and accident work together. Here, the laboratory is not just a technical place, but a space of surprise, interpretation and freedom.
Cyanotypes, with their intense blue tones, propose a melancholic, almost mineral, view of the world. Photograms, on the other hand, record ephemeral presences: contours, shadows, structures, bringing to the fore the fragility of objects and gestures. In both cases, the image is born from a physical contact — the paper, the light, the subject, the chemicals — a direct encounter that cannot be replicated digitally.
This exhibition is, at the same time, an exercise in knowledge. For students at the beginning of their training, working in this way means learning patience, attention to detail, but also the willingness to embrace uncertainty. The process becomes as valuable as the result, it can cause mistakes, it can generate surprises, but in all these stages the individual artistic voice is built.
Imago. Visions in Transition illustrates an essential phase of the creative journey: the moment when experiment becomes method, and the historical techniques of photography are rediscovered not as nostalgia, but as a space of freedom. The works presented are testimonies of a transformation, from simple curiosity to the first forms of artistic vision, from play to intention.
The curators of this edition, Associate Professor Dr. Ion Gherman and Lecturer Dr. Mădălin Mărienuț, curated the exhibition of participating artists, students of the Photography-Video specialization: Alexia Anton, Antonia Apostol, Elisaveta Boiciuc, Cristian Dedar, Petrina Goga, Alexia Hulea, Matei Lascău, Cristina Lungu, Raisa Roșca, Anastasia Telagă, Carla Toncean, Claudiu Vaida, Maria Văipan, Arianna Weisz.
The program was completed by a workshop dedicated to argentine techniques, enthusiastically appreciated by the participants, which offered a relevant foray into traditional practices of the photographic image. Also, teaching staff from the Faculty of Arts and Design within UVT made a visit to the "Mihai Eminescu" National College in Petroșani, where students were presented with opportunities to continue their studies at the university level.
Group photo: Cătălin Rus
Lecturer, University Professor, PhDMadalin Marienuț
