As I told you before, I'm a big fan of stealing faces, people, stories from the street. Now my craziness is getting larger and because I'm excited by Steemit I came up with the following idea:
Get a story out of your own choice pictures, and I will pay out, once this post turns 7 days, 3 prizes:
First prize - 10 SBD
Second prize - 7 SBD
Third prize - 3 SBD
Me, @catalincernat and @vonaurolacu will be the judges so we'll have people from both photography domain and writing.
The only catch is, the pictures have to be made by you. Tell a story (make it up people!) based on what we see in those pictures and make a post out of it. Decorate it, put it gifs, whatever you want to do. Just keep those 4 pictures central, as to be in the main topic of the story. You can even add more, but somehow keep a number of 4 (it's a round number, I like it) as the central core.
I will not put the condition of a number of words. I know there are creative people out there that can make an incredible story out of 4 photos and 4 smart captions underneath, so I'll leave it to your choice.
The clock will start ticking for the submissions once I publish this post. Until the maturity of it (7 days) I'll wait for submissions that should be dropped as a link to your post, below, in the comments.
Come on, guys! MAKE ME READ, laugh, cry, make me buy a whole bunch of vanilla ice cream and eat it whole as I shed tears of joy or grief by reading your stories and checking out your pictures :) Please resteem only if you feel like it, but hey! would be nice to have as many submissions as possible...
Below is my crazy deviation based on 4 random pictures I took during some of my photo pilgrimages.
Aunty Genoveva was working 7:00 to 15:00 each day. Only on Sundays she would not work but would visit her job place anyway. She was working in the elderly shelter for 15 years now and her mom was a resident here too.
Genoveva Dumitrescu was better in the old days. She only got some heart problems back in the early '90s when medicine was either scarce or impossible to find. Used to work in a pastry shop, down in the center, before the fall of the old regime. Quite good at handling that dough. I, could hear them, all, having that family tradition, wrestling with the cake before Christmas.
Living one story over the Dumitrescu family is a weird experience I tell you...
Sandu comes home usually after Genoveva arrives. As soon as she hits the small, two bedroom apartment, she throws her coat on the hanger and starts making food. Whatever... just something to chop, boil (most of ALL) or fry. And God forbid not to use onion woman. GOD FORBID! I used to think: "Hey! I have some money under the couch. I can buy for them that damn range hood. Just to get rid of the smell they put inside my house." And every day Genoveva, EVERY fucking day.
That's because of her husband. And her son. Because Genoveva cooks for two big boys. Sandu is an auto mechanic at UBEMAR Ploiesti. He had a prostate cancer operation but still holds well. I can see that when he just sits on the bench in front of the apartment building we live in. His yellow, stained undershirt and traces of spit are clear signs that he ate 5 bowls of Auntie Genoveva's soup and now he just wants to sit and pick on teenager girls coming from the nearby high school.
Romeo is 43, not necessarily a virgin but still lives with mommy and daddy. Being a railway mechanic for maneuvers in and out of the refinery is pretty easy. You get to dress in that nice uniform, people tend to give you credit when you go to the shop to buy a pack of cigarettes. He works maximum 'till 15:00 so he manages somehow to come every day almost simultaneously with his mother. They usually fight. He is unhappy because the stew is not ready and because of FC Concordia Chiajna losing to FC Juventus Falticeni. Like a lot of men in his age and still working in Romania, the sporting bet fever didn't go around Romeo either. He is at the phase where he doesn't like to bet anymore, he is way past the period of hoping. He only bets because he has to... it's a way of life like he has a way of eating, back in mommy's apartment.
Fuck... Romeo, that's not a life to live my friend. Your brownish, tabacoo mustache, those dark wrinkles under the eyes and that way of eating sarmale will get you, man!
Just like they did Nina. And your kids man!
Corina wants to be a dancer. She and her sister, Diana, come sometimes to visit their grandparents, Genoveva, and grandpa Sandi. They now live in something resembling a shelter for small families somewhere close to the edge of town. Corina dances in the slums and when her mother can afford it she takes some ballet lessons but they can't be that often. At least that's what she tells Genoveva. That "mommy is doing the best she can to keep us fed".
Genoveva sees me sometimes like that shoulder to cry on, that middleman that can have an open ear and not judge. The hell I ain't!
And the hell if Genoveva stands Nina, her daughter in law... or had any intention of allowing her to be part of the family ever since she got married to Romeo. Anyway. Romeo's sports bets, Genoveva's bad temper and probably the bad eating habits of Sandu drove this girl away. Together with the two little girls.
It was crowded anyway.
Nina took the car and the girls when she left. The car was registered in her name (for cheaper insurance reasons) anyway. Only a nylon bag and a handful of clothes, most of them of the girls. I saw the scene from my balcony. It's impossible not to see, impossible not to hear.
Living together, in small, compact buildings, crowded, one on top of the other. Smells, sounds, words, fights, moans, screams, the high heels on the stairs... it's a living hell but also a full basket of an abundance of stories and exotic happenings. You get to be witness to personalities in their intimacy. People tend to open to neighbors, sometimes forcing the relationship to limits hard to accept.
Sometimes I have Genoveva over for a coffee. In her few hours, on Sunday, when she's free. Romeo is who knows in what sports betting agency, while Sandu is taking the rightful afternoon nap.
She cries. Through sips of coffee, tears stumble upon each other rolling down from those round cheeks of hers. She misses her granddaughters. She got used to having them all together, to have access to them all the time, but now... she has to learn to deal with the pain you know. And maybe stop being such a little cunning bitch you know...Genoveva?! I mean... you can't cry over spilled milk if you were the one who spilled it in the first place.