Photobook Review: Costică Acsinte - Foto Splendid vol.1: Social Life

Photobook Review: Costică Acsinte – Foto Splendid vol.1: Social Life

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“Too quickly do we forget our ancestors, we demolish our heritage buildings with too much ease, we respect the past less and less, as if we were the most forgetful nation of Europe.” – Filip-Lucian Iorga, historian

Costică Acsinte was born 4th of July, 1897 in a small village called Perieți, Ialomița County. He fought in WWI. Despite his formation as a pilot, he was a official war photographer till 15th of June, 1920. As soon as the war was over he opened a studio — „Foto Splendid C. Acsinte“ in Slobozia town. Dies at 87, on 7th of January, 1984.

Costică Acsinte’s legacy consists in about 5000 film negatives on glass plates, a smaller number of sheet film negatives and an unknown number of photographic prints. Most of the prints bear the stamp of the photography studio “Foto Splendid Acsinte” on the back. 2013 saw the initiation of a project for digitizing this vast collection of moments from the past, some of the works being in an advanced state of degradation. Currently the digital version of Costică Acsinte’s works is under public domain and the progress of the digitalization project can be traced on the project’s website: http://colectiacosticaacsinte.eu/

The photobook comes in three editions:
Volumul I Viața socială/Social Life (Romanian/English)(122pag)
Editura Filos, București, 2015
ISBN: 9786068619170ca1

Volumul I Viața socială — ediție specială Ana Barton (Romanian only)(114pag)
Editura Filos, București, 2015
ISBN: 9786068619163ca2

I was thinking earlier it’s hard to do a photobook review on documentary photography and I was not wrong. Basically there are very few things you can tell about such a book. If you like the photos, if you want to own a part of our photographic history you should buy it. I personally recommend the normal edition of the book as I am not a fan of personal interpretations of old documentary photography. Neither a fan of coloring old photos also but as seen as they are public domain anyone can enjoy them as they wish. Please find below some photos from the photobook that need no further words.

CA_20131112_004 CA_20131112_027 CA_20131112_033 CA_20131112_031CA_20131113_006 ca_20140221_004 CA_20131113_009 CA_20131113_008ca_20140227_011 ca_20140511_002 ca_20140511_001 ca_20140313_004ca_20140519_008 ca_20140531_034 ca_20140530_008 ca_20140530_007ca_20140602_011 ca_20140928_033 ca_20140911_014 ca_20140816_021ca_20150111_002

Buy the book here: http://colectiacosticaacsinte.eu/shop/ – until 15.06 you get a 10% discount using the discount code: oitzarisme2015
For photos please check out: http://colectiacosticaacsinte.eu/blog/.
You can browse the photobook in paper-format in the Oitzarisme Library.

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(RO only) Concurs:
Oitzarisme.ro prin amabilitatea lui Cezar Popescu “îngrijitor de plăcuțe” , va ofera 3 printuri Piezography Neutral K7 ink set on Epson Archival Matte a4 paper (print size 1:1), unframed, unmatted a urmatoarelor fotografii: foto1, foto2, foto3.

Tot ce trebuie sa faceti este sa accesati pagina de Facebook Oitzarisme http://www.facebook.com/Oitzarisme si sa dati Distribuie/Share postarii cu acest photobook review pana in data de 24 Mai orele 22:00. Cezar va alege cei trei castigatori prin tragere la sorti folosind random.org si ii va anunta in comentariu la postarea pe facebook antementionata. Mult succes!