Days we planned, and what came out of them

Each job below starts with the brief as the client sent it and ends with what we handed over and when. Client names are left out where the contract asks us to.

Red wine, walnuts and a quince on porous limestone in side light.

Feteasca Neagra, autumn release

Stills, Hall A, September 2026

The brief was three lines long: the new vintage, something that says autumn in Moldova without a barrel or a grandmother, and files for the shelf talkers by mid-month. We read it as a still life problem rather than a lifestyle one, and pitched a set built from what is actually on a table here in September: quince, walnuts, a bit of linen, and a slab of the same porous limestone the old town is built from.

The stone came from a yard in Cricova that sells offcuts by weight. Our art director spent a morning there choosing a piece with enough holes to catch the light and not so many that it read as a sponge. The quinces came from Piața Centrală the day before, twelve of them, because about a third of quinces have a bruise on the side you want.

We shot over two days in Hall A, using the window light in the afternoons and a single hard source through a cutter for the morning frames, so that the two halves of the campaign would match. Tethered capture meant the winery's marketing lead approved frames on the set. Selects went over on the evening of day two and 64 retouched frames on 11 September, a day inside the deadline.

Dolly on track on a cobbled street lined with one-storey limestone houses.

Mateevici street, 45 seconds

Film, location, August 2026

A regional bank wanted a slow single-take spot along a street of old one-storey houses, the kind that are disappearing from the centre. The agency had a storyboard and a director; they needed the street, the permit and a crew who could lay twenty metres of track on cobbles without drilling anything.

We recced four streets and settled on a block of Alexei Mateevici because the plane trees were still full and the houses on the north side had their original window frames. The permit took eleven working days from the Primăria municipiului Chișinău, plus a separate agreement with the traffic police for a rolling closure. We wrote to every household on the block a week ahead and knocked on the doors that did not answer.

It rained the night before, which the director liked, so we kept the cobbles wet with a water truck through the afternoon. Six hours of closure, nine takes, the fourth one used. First assembly on day two, offline in five working days, graded master on the tenth.

Scout with a camera and notebook in a Botanica courtyard, apartment blocks in morning haze.

Courtyards in Botanica

Recce only, October 2026

Sometimes the whole job is the recce. A furniture brand from Bucharest is shooting its spring catalogue in Chișinău and wanted ordinary courtyards between Soviet-era blocks, lived in but not wrecked, with trees old enough to make shade.

Cristina walked twenty-three courtyards in Botanica over three mornings, each at the hour the brief asked for, between eight and ten. For every one we logged the sun path for April, where a truck can stand, the nearest socket we could rent, the condition of the playground, and whether the building's association would want a fee or a conversation. Some wanted both.

The client received a recce file with 140 stills, a pin for each courtyard and a shortlist of six ranked by how little we would have to move. They have booked the shoot for the second week of April, and three of the associations have already asked if they can watch.

Vineyard rows at golden hour with a white van parked at the edge.

Rows above Cricova

Film, location, October 2026

A sparkling house wanted thirty seconds of the harvest ending: the last rows, the light going, the van leaving. The difficulty is that golden hour on a slope lasts about twenty minutes and harvest crews do not wait for a film.

We shot the wide plates on a scouting day a week before, when nobody was in the vines, so that on the main day the camera only had to chase people. A schedule built around sunset at 18:21 put the crew of nine on the hill by 15:00, with two vans so one could leave in shot while the other stayed for kit.

We wrapped at 18:40, drove back through Stăuceni and had the rushes backed up in the grading room by nine. The client chose the assembly on the second day without changes to the structure.

Vendor weighing grapes beside crates of quinces and sacks of walnuts.

Piața Centrală before seven

Stills, location, October 2026

A food quarterly asked for a market story with real vendors and real produce, shot before the crowds. The market office will give you a paper, but it is the people behind the stalls who decide whether you can stand there.

Our producer went round on the Friday before with printed frames from a previous shoot, explained what we wanted and agreed a fee per stall for two hours. Four vendors said yes, one asked to be photographed only from the hands down, which is the frame the magazine ran on its opening spread.

Natural light only, a reflector and one assistant. Selects went to the editor that afternoon and the full set of 38 retouched frames six working days later.

Hall B with coloured paper backdrops and softboxes under a skylight.

A knitwear week in Hall B

Stills, Hall B, March 2026

A knitwear label from Bălți sends us its new season every spring, and every spring it is around ninety pieces on a model and on the floor. It is a production problem more than a creative one: keep a steaming station, a dressing area and the camera moving without anyone waiting.

We ran Hall B as a line. Garments arrived steamed and tagged, the stylist dressed the model in the corridor, and the photographer worked against three paper colours chosen with the label in February. Hall A next door held the flat lays on a table under a soft overhead so nothing had to be carried upstairs.

Five days, 91 garments, 412 delivered frames. The web files went live on the label's shop before the retouched print files had even been sent.

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