I started to take a series of photographic self-portraits after a few days when self-isolation became compulsory in Bucharest. For the first time since I live here, the quality of the air in this city was comparable to the one in the mountains, so I got myself in the hiking gear and went up on the roof of the building where I live, to “check” this air. Then I started to notice the comparison to the mountain could be extended to the quietness and the solitude. The world around me was paralysed, nothing was moving, the streets were empty, the cranes at the horizon looked like monsters from another time and the sound of birds chirping was interrupted only by the sirens of the ambulance and police, and sometimes by a neighbour practicing the piano.
I found myself contemplating the neighbourhood with much more attention to details, in a mood I can usually have only when I am hiking in the mountains. The paths I explore there until I remember them in my mind are now the streets and roofs around me in the city, which are my companions during this solitude.
