SINZIANA VELICESCU - photographer
Its with great curiosity that some of the most subtle photos we've featured come from the mecca of chaos, Los Angeles. Sinziana Velicescu is a twenty-six year old artist who observes the city with an incredibly delicate eye, highlighting its strange accents of beauty and design in medium format. Her daily observations make for a sublime follow on Instagram, so we had to investigate who she was and how she came to develop such a unique take on the crazy metropolis.
Who are you?
My name is Sinziana Velicescu, I’m a 26 year old photographer & filmmaker from Los Angeles, CA.
Describe your medium & process for your photos.
I shoot mostly with a medium format camera. I try to allow a few hours each week for shooting; I'll randomly pick an area of LA depending on my mood and wander around aimlessly by car or on foot.
How did you find your passion? Who/what influences your work?
My relationship with photography began out of the boredom and disappointment I felt immediately after high school, when I realized I would be spending (at least) four more years in the city & neighborhood I had grown up in my entire life. Los Angeles isn’t the worst place to be “stuck” in, but its urban landscape is deceptive; suburbia reigns in the very heart of the city, the automobile impedes human interaction, and the distances between destinations alienates the city from itself. Instead of rejecting these circumstances, I used photography as a vessel for exploring these themes of familiarity and loneliness that come about from living in a place like Los Angeles for too long. Aesthetically I’m influenced by abstract expressionism, graphic design, Edward Hopper, and the New Topographics movement.
What excites you about your work? What do you struggle with?
I’m most interested in the details that make up the ever-changing backdrop of our daily commute, the ones we often overlook because we’re too busy worrying about traffic or making that appointment.
I often struggle with locations and subjects I’m not familiar with. I need time to ingest the background story of a place and spend enough time there to understand what I’m photographing and what the story I’m trying to tell is.
What are your goals? Where do you see yourself going?
I’d love to explore every crevice of Los Angeles and every small town and highway in California. I’m also interested in documenting the effects of climate change & the excesses of consumerism. I have always been fascinated by the myth of the American Dream and I am curious to see (and of course frightened by) what the next wave of consequences will be.
You can see more of Sinziana's work here:
website • tumblr • instagram