Snippets from Strangers

vicemag:

Life in Communist Romania was Rough

Andrei Pandele is the only photographer who had the balls to shoot the Ceaușescu era in Romania during the 1970s and 80s. This was a time when taking a picture of hardship, like people waiting in line for bread, was seen as a “denigration of the socialist reality” and could land you six years in prison. Pandele, who is 65, has amassed such a vast pictorial archive of life in communist Romania that, when we asked to see some of his unpublished images, he sent us a CD with 11,000 pictures. Each one was totally captivating and amazing-looking, but also pretty depressing.