New Year, New Plans

Hey everyone! 

I know the blog has been dormant for quite some time BUT I promise to change things in 2020. 

This post should have appeared a month ago, but for objective reasons, the new year for me starts a month later. For starters, I would like to thank everyone for taking your time to be by my side throughout this difficult period. Thank you and for continuing to follow me on my journey in the world of photography!

Last year I started with some pretty serious plans and I have to admit that 2019 was packed with a lot of events (most of them were quite interesting, with one or two horrid exceptions). A lot of things happened (such as becoming a Master of Arts in the field of Photography and getting my degree in Cultural Studies), I visited many places (for some I have shared some info, for others - not yet). However, there were plans that could not move out of the drawing board (I am only one person, after all, and the day is only 24 hours).

So now is the time to share what I intend to do this year.

In 2019 Culture Crossroads was left in the background (not because I don't have something to share, but because I was pretty busy creating the images on location) so in 2020 I'll try to have more things to appear like on the page, and also on the blog and website of the project. About that, a little later.

The first and largest of the new things is my modification to the 365 day photo challenge. Since I doubt being able to take pictures absolutely every day in the new year, I invented something different.

There is another option of the photo challenge where one shot should be done every week, a total of 52 images. However, this was seemed too restricting to me, so I created the 52 week triple challenge.

The idea is that every week there will be three alternative topics and depending on my opportunity to shoot, there will be between one and three photos, depending on my mood and inspiration that week.

The list of topics can be downloaded from my website in case anyone wants to join :) I will announce the topics each Monday and whoever wishes can share their images in a comment under the post. Photos will also be posted on my blog as well as on Instagram.

Ironically, last year the challenge ended exactly in week 5 (because my busy schedule became even busier). Therefore, this year, we will start straight from week 5 :)

Another change is that more photos and videos will appear on the Culture Crossroads project page - both videos from the places and behind-the-scenes footage. However, to be able to see those in due time, you will have to follow the project page and my YouTube channel.

I have planned a series of videos for this page, this time for the fieldwork in travel photography, as this genre takes out a huge part of my time. As usual, there will be options in Bulgarian and English :) I hope you'll like it :) Generally, this was the plan last year, but obviously I will do this one so now's the time.

The second project is linked to Dmitry Glukhovsky's Subway Series (Metro 2033, Metro 2034 and Metro 2035, in case anyone is interested). More about that when the project starts. There will be lots of pictures again and a lot of work to be done.

The Title? Metro 2020 :)

Finally, I am currently developing a mini photo project that is directly linked to shooting places from old photos. The Target? Old Sofia. Whoever managed to visit my exhibition in may 2019 has already seen some of the images, but I plan to keep going. For the fans and followers of the page, I will start sharing the images I already have :) The project video presentation can be found here.

I wish all of you a 2020 filled with much success health and smiles!

Week 4 - themes

Here are the topics for week 4 - all of them exciting:
a) the colour BLUE
b) city lights
c) from a high angle

Week 3 - topics

Due to brutally awful Internet connection these days (of which fans from Bulgaria are already aware and had the chance to laugh a lot), I can upload the topics for this week only now.

Week 3:
a) the colour RED
b) drink up
c) guilty pleasure

The pictures from last week - later today.

Week 2 - result

I'm starting with the photos from the second (the week before the last, i.e. week 2 of the challenge) - I had awful connection problems within the past three weeks.

Because of that, the fans from Bulgaria were able to enjoy some funny texts about me being without Internet connection AND the whole story with the technicians. This, on the other hand, gave rise to a collection of really short funny stories BUT that is a topic for a different post.


Contrary to my desire to do more than one shot a week, it turned out that it wouldn't word and that's why the only topic that worked was the morning one.


This is the sunrise I see from my window.

Week 2 - themes

Week 2 of the challenge is live and here are the themes :)

a) Morning

b) Made with love

c) Clouds

I don't know about you but this sounds a lot easier than the previous topics.

Looking forward to seeing your amazing images.

Wishing you a week full of inspiration.

Week 1 - result

As I guessed, I couldn't create a decent photo of myself (guess that's the curse of being a photographer), I settled for option C - a new beginning. Didn't exactly have a clear idea but my first association was a blank page, a new chapter on the book. Hence I created this simple still life. It is a cliche, I know BUT since I am a writer too (no, seriously here - writing fan fiction and blog posts also counts) to me the beginning of any text is something almost magical - you need a lot of inspiration and it is wonderful to see how the blank page is filled with letters that form a story, a new world for those who would read it.

Of course, I don't write on paper now (people have invented Microsoft Office, after all) but when I was younger, I used to do so.