Cosmin Gârleşteanu
Romania
Biography
Cosmin Gârleșteanu is a photographer and video editor based in Bucharest, Romania. With a background in economic studies – he attended the Economic Studies Academy– he felt he would like a more creative career and shifted towards radio and then video editing.His images have been published in a range of magazines, whilst his work was featured in various group and solo exhibitions during London, Brussels and Miami Street Photography Festivals or Eyeshot Open Call. His photobook, Bucharest, was published in 2023 and reprinted in 2025.
Project
Bucharest is Cosmin Gârleșteanu’s ongoing exploration of his hometown, a city he once underestimated and has since rediscovered as a companion in a constantly evolving visual dialogue.
What began as a kind of “duel” between photographer and city gradually transformed into a dance of mutual discovery. Cosmin learned patience, realising that Bucharest reveals itself at its own pace: in cloudy days and golden light alike, in seemingly ordinary corners as well as in the most striking scenes.
Captured primarily on foot, often with music in his ears, the project documents the city’s constant transformations while preserving the childlike sense of wonder and curiosity—wanting to discover “what hides around the next corner.” Bucharest is both a testament to the capital’s reinvention and an exercise in presence, finding memorable stories right outside one’s doorstep.
For Cosmin, photographing Bucharest is an act of closeness and dialogue, a way of feeling like a tourist in his own city. With an open heart and his camera around his neck, he keeps walking. For Bucharest.
Statement
Cosmin Gârleșteanu is a photographer and video editor based in Bucharest, whose visual practice is rooted in street photography, careful observation, and a constant dialogue with his surroundings.
He approaches everyday life with curiosity, seeking poetic tension, humour, and emotional resonance in ordinary moments. Rather than staging scenes, Cosmin cultivates awareness: he listens, observes, waits, and captures interactions and contrasts that reveal something both intimate and universal.
He often photographs while walking, with music as his companion, relying more on serendipity than on a fixed plan, allowing details, oddities, and moods to guide his camera. Humour plays a subtle but constant role in his images—not as mockery, but as a way of bridging distances, highlighting the absurd or unexpected, and reminding us of our shared human frailties.
In his practice, photography becomes both mirror and conversation: a way to reveal, to question, and to feel less alone in the act of looking.
