Vintage photographs from the city of Giurgiu taken by Carol Pop de Szathmary, of the WWI devastations of the city, WWII German soldiers, of the city's music band from a hundred years ago, photographs from the communist period, but also contemporaries from the collection of the AGERPRES National News Agency were brought together by historian Sorin Margarit in an open exhibition, Friday, at the Teohari Antonescu County Museum in the city on the Danube River.

Called 'Giurgiu Superangular - Vintage Photography and Photographic Technique', the exhibition is a project dedicated to the visual memory of the city of Giurgiu and the development of photographic art.

'The exhibition brings together photographs taken in the photographic workshops of Giurgiu from the 19th century, from the interwar and communist periods, as well as vintage cameras from the collection of the historian Sorin Margarit. Added to them are pictures from the AGERPRES picture library capturing emblematic moments in the history of our city. It is an exhibition made in collaboration with the National News Agency,' says Director of the Giurgiu County Museum, Ionut Gheorghe.

Giurgiu Deputy Mayor Ionel Muscalu said in his turn that the exhibition honours the Giurgiu community.

'This exhibition is absolutely gorgeous. (...) I want to make a Laudatio to those who made this exhibition, including the National News Agency AGERPRES, an institution with which the museum has been collaborating for a very long time, an extraordinary institution of the Romanian state, a backbone of communication regarding Romania,' said Muscalu.

Historian Sorin Margarit made a presentation of the exhibition dedicated to the photography of Giurgiu.

'The title superangular, that is wide-angle, is a metaphor starting from the wide-angle lens that captures a very wide spectrum. We have from the oldest photographs in Giurgiu, taken by Carol Pop de Szathmary - and you can see five paintings from 1866 and 1873, Giurgiu Railway Station, a very important station at the time, a gateway to Europe, a kind of today's Otopeni, because the shortest way to the heart of Europe was through Giurgiu. From Filaret they started by train; in an hour they arrived in Giurgiu, as against seven hours you did in a stagecoach, and from there they had a barge that would go to Budapest, to Vienna and then to the heart of Europe. Of course, that was also appealing to photographers. Giurgiu was a port city and photographers set up workshops here. We have photographers who had workshops in Giurgiu around 1870, pioneers of photography, and eventually arrived in Alexandria, not Alexandria of Teleorman, but Alexandria in Egypt, and we have exhibited photographs for the first time, because we have not exhibited images from our personal collection of photographs from 1870 - 1880 anywhere. The exhibition includes unique photographs, on cardboard, which show simple people, on a journey from 1870, then WWI, very rare photographs that show the devastation the city faced in WWI, when it was ferociously bombed by the Central Powers, when about 80 percent of the city centre was destroyed. The exhibition continues with photographs from the communist period, and also contemporary photographs from the AGERPRES collection. The last showcase is dedicated to the city of Ruse,' Margarit told the opening of the exhibition.

Attending the opening of the exhibition, Claudia Nicolae - director general of the National News Agency AGERPRES - underlined the importance of press photography, which captures moments of history.

'There are moments that AGERPRES photojournalists were lucky to capture, because press photography is different from artistic photography. Press photography has in it an action, a fact, a moment. When photojournalists capture that frame, they will never think that that photograph will become a work of art of history. They do their job as photojournalists. The AGERPRES library has over 4.5 million photos. (...) It is a treasure, and such moments bring us the joy that we can show them on. (...) Ideas for future events in Giurgiu have already been outlined, because AGERPRES is a state institution, an institution open to everyone and this must be in the future - a mark that will leave, in the years to come, a memory,' said Nicolae.

The opening of the exhibition was attended by people of all ages. Among them were historical collectors from Ruse, Bulgaria, who said they were especially pleased to see for the first time some photographs of their city. AGERPRES (RO - editing by: Camelia Bigan; EN - writing by: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)