Today I stumbled upon the stunningly beautiful work of Jane Long and photographer Costică Acsinte…
Jane is an artist and fine art photographer from Brisbane, Australia who happened upon some old photos and decided to give them new life…
Born on the 4th of July in 1897 in the little village of Perieți, România was Costică Acsinte. He fought in WWI and despite his training as a pilot, he was an official war photographer until June 15, 1920.
When the war ended, he opened a studio called “Foto Splendid C. Acsinte” in the town of Slobozia. Costică passed away at the age of 87, on January 7, 1984. In 1985, the Ialomița County History Museum acquired more than 5000 photographic plates made by Acsinte between the years of 1935–1945. In 2007. On June 23, 1991 all of Costică’s work went into Public Domain.
Enter Flickr Commons, and an online search by Jane Long.
“The Dancing with Costică series initially came about when I decided to brush up on my retouching skills. After finding the Costică Acsinte Archive on Flickr I became fascinated with the images and their subjects. I wanted to bring them to life. But more than that I wanted to give them a story.”
“I will probably never know the real stories of these people but in my mind they became characters in tales of my own invention,” Long said of her thought process in creating the surreal images.
Her photographs were featured in the “Dancing with Costica” exhibition at the Romanian Embassy in Canberra from March 30 to June 30, 2015.
Her gorgeous series has received much acclaim internationally and you can see why…
”Star crossed lovers, a girl waiting for her lover to come home, boys sharing a fantasy, innocent children with a little hint of something dark.”
All of her work is dreamy and otherworldly.
From Jane’s website: “I wanted to change the context of the images,” says Long. “Photographic practices at the time meant people rarely smiled in photos but that doesn’t mean they didn’t laugh and love. I wanted to introduce that to the images”.
The series has had its controversies with some people suggesting it is disrespectful to use images of people she doesn’t know.
“On the contrary!” she responds. “I wanted people to see these figures as real people, more than just an old photograph. Adding colour completely changes our perception of images.”
Sources: Jane Long, Costică Acsinte Archive, Costică Acsinte Archive project
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Great article! We will be linking to this particularly great post on our
website. Keep up the good writing.
I really like your blog. You girls have built a very nice site that brings interesting reading and subjects. I’ve never even heard of some of the stuff you post about, but it’s really nice to learn. Thanks
What wonderful pictures and a magical idea!
Brilliant. By far the best usage of old photos ever.
Beautiful!! Thank U for posting.
What an interesting idea. Who would have thought that you could take old photographs like these and turn them into something so new and beautiful. I love it!
Who knew that old things could be made new again!
These are exceptional photographs and coloring. I remember when photos were hand colored but you could never do things like this. Photoshop has to be one of the coolest tools in the world.