Over the years, the glacier- or snow-covered mountain peaks have drawn me like a magnet. To photograph them requires a tribute of effort, sweat, and facing the cold or the wind. I've been climbing mountains my whole life, and my photography is inseparably tied to the mountains. Perhaps that's why the collection of black-and-white photographs of snow-covered peaks is so dear to me. Sometimes I set off into the mountains in the middle of the night to be in the right place at precisely the right time. That's why each of these images has a story behind it, some of which are incredible.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
The answer started to take shape around the age of 2 or 3, when, plagued by a persistent "whooping cough," my grandfather—following the advice of an old doctor from Bistrița—took me to the train station to breathe in steam from a locomotive. Yes! Yes! They were still in operation on secondary lines back then. Naturally, I ended up in the drivers' cabin, and, fascinated by the levers and gauges, I immediately defined my future: "locomotive driver."

And wouldn’t you know it, destiny (the one you create for yourself—fate is what you don’t choose) led me in the late '90s to Vișeu de Sus and the Mocănița steam train. My first photographs were on film. But I started taking photography of the Mocănița more seriously around 2003. And I haven’t stopped since. I think I’ve seen about three generations of "locomotive drivers" who became my subjects. And, of course, the Mocănița itself. So, for about 30 years, we’ve been aging together.

A space gifted by nature with scenic superlatives, it has been inhabited for centuries by people who have, over time, shaped the appearance of the mountain villages found in the Rucăr-Bran Corridor. As expected, the harsh mountain life imparts a unique character to the people living between Piatra Craiului and the Bucegi Mountains, which guard this pre-mountain area dominated by rounded hills. It is a civilization of hay, animal husbandry, wooden houses, and hard labor. This is a place that has fascinated me for over 40 years, and whose evolution I have captured in my photographs.