The Transylvania captured by photographer Mihail Onaca is not the one of castles and legends. It is the one of village roads, wooden gates, and faces marked by time and season. A Romanian photographer originally from the region, Onaca has spent over a decade travelling across Transylvania, building a personal visual archive of portraits, landscapes, and architectural details. His approach is documentary, but not detached: he looks for meaning in simplicity, in the unhurried rhythm of everyday life, in the faces of those who continue to shape these environments through their presence.

The images move across different registers. A close portrait of an elderly woman in traditional dress, her face lined and her gaze direct, capable of holding an entire story. A blue arched gateway with handmade stockings and textiles displayed for sale, vivid colours against ancient stone. Houses with painted walls and hand-decorated facades, where the attention to architectural detail speaks to a cultural transmission that is still very much alive. Light, texture, and atmosphere are the primary tools — not to beautify, but to reveal the layers of history and identity that the landscape carries with it.

The project is neither a nostalgic celebration nor a documentation of something disappearing. It is rather an attempt to look carefully at what exists: a region where cultural heritage remains deeply woven into the fabric of everyday life, continually evolving while retaining many of its defining characteristics.