Asociația Artiștilor Fotografi din România

In November 1956, Aurel Bauch, Eugen Iarovici, Hedy Löffler-Weiselberger, Tibor Löwy and other photographers signed the founding act of the Association of Art Photographers. Decades followed in which the association had its own gallery in the Universul Palace, organised international salons and published 198 issues of the bulletin „Fotografia”. Then the 1990s nearly erased it: premises lost, members gone. It was rebuilt in 2007 by five photographers who refused to let it disappear, and since 2010 Romania has had, by government decision, a Day of Photographic Art: 11 January.

An association with that history did not need a shop window, it needed a living archive. The site is built around people: nearly 200 art photographers — newcomers, members, honorary and associate members — each with their own profile, reached from their name.

Around them sits everything that makes up a salon photographer’s life. The salons, from the Bucharest Photographic Art Salon to the international ones in Târgu Mureș and the Romanian Grand Circuit, with 38 editions in the archive. The distinctions earned through salon results: the AAFR titles — Artist, Expert, Master — and the international FIAP ones. Then the events, exhibitions, articles and the documents an organiser needs to request the association’s patronage.

For members, the site is a working tool with their own account, not just a showcase. And for anyone who comes across it, it is proof that art photography in Romania has a home with almost seven decades of memory — and that its door is still open.