I've made it my goal to do a Black And White post every Monday. Just to reminisce about the times when I only photographed this way, color photography being too much for my strength. This is also a nostalgia of youth. I remember now how hard I managed to set up my own little photo lab. Amateur photography fifty years ago was a hard craft, which also involved knowing the methods of developing film and then enlarging and getting images on paper in the lab.
I almost don't even realize when all that disappeared. Of course, along with my youth.
Today I took another walk in the nearby park. A park that has in the middle of it a building, a summer theatre. I mean the ghost of a summer theatre because this building has been left to decay, not being used since the 1990s.
This open-air theatre, a summer theatre, was built in the 1950s in Bucharest. This was just three years after the abolition of the monarchy in Romania and the establishment of a proletarian regime, following the model imposed by the Soviet Union, i.e. communist Russia.
In 1954 a big festival of young people from communist countries was to be held in Bucharest and this theatre was needed for the performances programmed in this festival.
The construction was very beautiful, with architecture inspired by ancient Greek and Roman architecture. I also saw it when it was in use, around 1960-1970, when I lived in this neighborhood.
After the removal of communism from Romania, after 1990, this building, like many others, was abandoned and decayed in the middle of our park.
Any building that is no longer inhabited is slowly, slowly, conquered by vegetation and degraded by rain, wind, frost, snow...
Although this building is protected by a fence, in fact, it's not allowed to enter in order to avoid accidents due to falling parts of the roof, I went in to take some pictures.
So I noticed that on the frontispiece which is not visible from the outside there is still a bas-relief with the old communist coat of arms of Romania. The coat of arms was also on the flag of communist Romania.
That's not what made me nostalgic, of course. The only regret of those times is that I miss my lost youth. I also miss this building which had its beauty and importance in those times and could still be used for performances and concerts.
The lack of color seems to have taken some of the ugliness out of these ruins. I understand now more easily that Black And White better conveys the feelings and mood of the viewer. Because I feel only sadness and some nostalgia seeing this place... that had a place in my life and youth.
This is my entry for the #monomad challenge.
