I was born in communist Socialist Romanian Republic just before the Iron Curtain fall, and just before the Romanian Revolution sparkled.

While in post-communist Romania for almost a decade, I had many classes of American English from which I learned as much as possible about American culture, history and American people. We used to have cable TV with no dubbing or subtitles so I had to learn quick in order to be able to understand what was aired on CNN, HBO or MTV and understand dialogues and jokes from Beavis and Butthead or american movies. When i was 7yo, i got lucky to have a computer (Intel 386DX 40mhz processor) and everything was in American English on it, from OS, to games and software. When i turned 15, i moved to Paris.

While in France, obviously almost all my American culture started fading off so I kept up the pace as much as I could with American friends , culture and news. Many times I was the only one in the middle of my French friends having an American culture. Not only the popular one, or just history and culture , or the Hollywood one, but also a large political knowledge. Obviously because I've also lived in the post communist Eastern European countries, where news channels and virtues were different from French ones. Being aware that Romania became a member of the European Union with the help of the USA and the integration in the NATO system, the implications of the wars in Yugoslavia by the United Nations, and so on, enlightened me more about the necessity for the world to have a leading country always looking towards the future and the well being of the world.

Which is also the case in Arts. The hearts, the brains and the eyes of the Americans are also leaning towards innovations, freedom and deep analysis in this particular area so very dear to me. Not only US had for decades a clear advance in all forms of arts and their display to the professional and general public, it still continues to be a leader in aesthetics and everything related to art. And, speaking about photography, while photographic process may have been a European & French invention , Art Photography was first considered as a whole Art in the US. And that happened at least 3 decades before Photography finally and gently started to be considered as a complete form of Art in most of the European countries.

Thank you, America, for your values and for your greatness of visions

Le Bog

art, corporate, industrial and fashion photographer