4 days in July

Gărâna Jazz Festival celebrated its 30th edition in 2026, marking three decades of musical improvisation, community and artistic exchange in the Semenic mountains. This series is neither a selection of “best images” nor a chronological archive of the festival. It inhabits the spaces in between, the moments when musicians relax, rehearse, wait, observe, or exist beyond the stage and the spotlight. I chose the trumpet as a recurring visual motif, an instrument that feels inseparable from breath, voice, and identity. As Louis Armstrong once said, “You blows who you is.” For me, these photographs are less about documenting jazz than about recognizing something of myself within it. They are fragments of attention, curiosity, and presence; an attempt to photograph not only what happened, but how it felt to be there. In the end, this work is a portrait of a festival, but also a self-portrait, shaped by the people, sounds, silences, and encounters that drew my eye.