Constantin Duma

Constantin Duma

Born in 1955 in Bihor County, I made my debut in the press on November 2, 1970 in the Crisana newspaper with images from the activity of the High School where I was a ninth grade student. From the 10th grade of high school I took over the coordination of the Photo Circle near the General Culture High School from Marghita, Bihor County together with professor Valer Tedic, a photography enthusiast and dedicated to His Majesty’s students. During the years 1970 to 1974 I was a correspondent with constant activity at the Crisana newspaper for the representation of the events of Marghita city. In 1975 I signed up for the Iris Photo Circle near the Timisoara Students’ Culture House under the support of Professor Iacob Cornea, a person passionate about photography, with internships in psychological portraiture, an admirer of the great Youssuf Karsh. In fact, in 2009 I paid a visit to Canada in the footsteps of the great photographer, I was on the sixth floor of the Hotel Château Laurier, where I could admire some of the original photos of the great portraitist.

In the autumn of 1975 I became the president of the Iris photo circle, having organized groups of beginners and advanced for students’ activity, for learning photography, film development, enlarging photographic images, koshering, preparing exhibitions for important groups of students. Many have learned this profession there, some of them carry out photography activities to this day. Creative activity in photography was an important means of expression in the 1980s for those who had a message to convey. In 1983 I attended the courses of the Popular Art School from Timisoara with specialization in photography and video with professor Onutiu Danciu. In the 1980s I coordinated the photographic activity at the Youth House in Timisoara and I already had a constant activity in the pages of the newspaper Drapelul Rosu, the county newspaper in Timis.

There followed a period from 1975 to 1990 when I worked at the Timis County School Inspectorate as a photographer. Here I made up for the lack of means of multiplication necessary for the didactic activity in schools by creating photographic activities with photodocumentary materials.

The year 1989, the Revolution of the Revolution of December, I was present starting with the period of December 15 and I took photos in the Revolution of December 17, 1989 and all the period that followed, with great changes in Timisoara, time there were 11 different manifestations ; from demonstrations in support of changes that were expected to happen to actions calling for the punishment of the guilty, the discovery of the dead from the revolution. Until March, there were daily demonstrations. In order to be in the middle of the events, I worked from the first days after December 22 with colleagues from Free Television Timisoara at Casa Tineretului until the summer of 1990. In March 1990 he had a representation mandate as an official photographer in the Timisoara Trial.

I have pictures with everyone present as defendants or witnesses; I had a direct connection with those who burned at the Crematorium Cenusa the corpses of the 43 heroes extracted from the morgue of the County Hospital on the night of December 18-19. It was a very difficult time. The free elections in May, the first signs of an incipient democracy, the public trial of those who supported the reprisals against the people of Timisoara. In December 1990 we made the exhibition on the one year anniversary of the Revolution in the center of Timisoara, and the following years we made the documentary fund for the “Museum of the Revolution of December 1989 in Timisoara” as we like to call it. It was in the building on Loga Street, one was “Ceausescu’s House”. Even now I do not understand why the authorities have so fiercely opposed this project. I supported the establishment of the photodocumentary fund at the Timisoara Revolution Memorial.

During all this period I supported the local press, the national one or the international press with the photos of interest from Timisoara. Since September 1990 I have been part of a project with the French Ministry of Labor, where I participated in four training modules in the profession of photojournalist in Paris, Chartre, Lyon and Beziers.

With the support of civil society, I also participated with colleagues from Timisoara in courses and photo training modules.

Photojournalist of the National Press Agency AGERPRES since 2002.

© Photometria International Photography Festival