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Sandra Rugina is an award-winning freelance photographer from Romania trying to make it in Oulu. As with many expats, it was love that brought Sandra Rugina to Oulu. And now the Romanian – who has done everything from weddings to fashion shoots in her home country – is aiming to establish herself in the city as a freelance photographer.
‘I first got interested in photography using my father’s camera when I was a child,’ says the twenty-eight year-old. Gradually, Sandra developed a true passion for photography and by 2005, using a digital camera of course, she had registered on a photographers’ website called ‘DeviantArt’ and was even winning awards on it. ‘Something that makes you remember,’ lilts the softly-spoken photographer when asked what she looks for in a good photo. Sandra concentrates on ‘portraits. I like portraits because people’s faces are so expressive.’ ‘Taking a good nature picture,’ she insists, is far more about ‘being lucky.’ ‘I look for the right moment,’ she tells me, ‘and often it works like that. I know what I want my picture to look like so it’s trying to create that.’ Sandra is originally from Timisoara which is close to the Hungarian border and famous for being the place where the overthrow of Communism in Romania began. In her home country, Sandra worked for a web-design company taking photos for their website such as ‘hotels or car lights.’ She also photographed at various fashion shows and remembers one occasion when the show was taking place in the garden of a museum and some of the models decided to dress and undress ‘in the yard’ before they posed for the shoot. ‘I have a photo of my boyfriend and, in the reflection of his sunglasses, you can see the ladies changing!’ laughs Sandra. She has also had her photos published in various local newspapers in Timisoara. As a PhD student in Wireless Technology, Sandra had expected to make some money through teaching at the university, but as that hasn’t materialised she has turned to photography. ‘I enjoy doing photography. I’d do it 24-7 if I could!’ So far, she has been the photographer at her sister-in-law’s high-school graduation, at a Roma festival in her home town and she currently has an exhibition of her photographs of Oulu – ‘Colours of Finland’ - at Villa Victor, the city’s immigrant centre in Heinäpää. As far as establishing herself as a business is concerned she’s ‘still working on it’ but she has plenty of ideas on how she’d provide something ‘different’ in terms of Oulu photography. ‘Many of the photographs on display in Oulu are just ordinary portraits,’ Sandra explains. ‘I like to take people out into the nature to take the photographs!’ Sandra would also make happier photographs. Referring to school graduation photos she remarks, ‘They are eighteen, they are young, they have nothing to worry about . . . so they can smile.’ Sandra has also set up her own website, which is already the sixth one to come up on ‘Google’ if you type in ‘photographer’ and ‘Oulu.’ The site contains links to various photographs of Sandra’s, such as those on Google Earth and the website Stock Photos, which is often drawn upon by book publishers for illustrations. The website contains Sandra’s portfolio which includes her commercial photography at weddings as well as photographs of Romania, northern Finland and a moving set of black and white photos called ‘Ghetto Story,’ which was also her first exhibition. ‘At one of the weddings that I photographed in the Romania the groom was a bit of a rebel,’ Sandra smiles. ‘He had his hair up in spikes and he wanted everything to be “different”!’ But, of course, Sandra took some conventional photos, ‘so that the relatives would have something as well.’ Sandra explains that she is happy to do weddings and is convinced that, through photography, she can make pretty much anybody ‘look beautiful’ or certainly ‘acceptable.’ ‘At one wedding I did there was this lady and I focussed on her eyelashes and the flowers so everything else was a blur. She absolutely loved it!’ And speaking of weddings, Sandra has just got married in a registry office in Finland but will be returning to Romania for a traditional Roman Catholic blessing ceremony so that all her friends and family can be there. And on that day, she’ll be taking a day off from wedding photography. Sandra’s website can be found at http://sandrarugina.eu/
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