The self-described “architect of fleeting moments”, Vlad Constantinescu from Bucharest, returns to the pages of our magazine with a new series of photographs.

This time his experimental portfolio shifted towards nighttime street photography. He stays, as usual, out of the picture, presenting viewers with emotionally withdrawn images of urban solitude. Warm light spills out of neons, street lamps, and cars to make the darkness almost inviting.

Constantinescu’s series of liminal street shots uses shadows, blurred lights, and human presence as tools to create an ambient, comforting atmosphere in otherwise unsettling situations. He shows a particular preference for the night; it is under the cover of darkness that people tend to be more honest with themselves.

It is this honesty that the photographer continuously pursues. “Looking is the only way I know to stay honest with myself,” he says. “I show up without fully exposing myself.”

Each piece is a call to join him and look in the same direction. The photographer invites viewers to see through his eyes without bias—and where bias is excluded, validation has no place either. “My work doesn’t explain me, and it doesn’t even need to. It exists so it can be felt. If there’s intimacy, it is brief and conditional.”

While capturing moments has always been one of photography’s many purposes, Constantinescu believes they do not need to be archived. Instead, he views the process as a ‘catch-and-release’ activity, where moments are “kept long enough to make them matter.”

In the end, he says, “ambiguity can be more delivering than clarity.”